5 Soul of the Fire

by Goodkind, Terry

  "I came into this not to rule, but to uphold the principle of freedom. My own father, Darken Rahl, was a dictator who ruled through intimidation, torture, and murder. Not even he was above the law I hope us all to live by. I took over his rule so that he could no longer abuse his people. I lead free people-I do not rule subjects.

  "I don't wish to tell you how to live, I instead wish to have all of you live in peace and safety the lives you choose for yourselves. I would like nothing more for myself and the Mother Confessor-my wife-than to raise a family together in peace and security with little need to devote myself to matters of ruling.

  "I would ask you to mark a circle, and join with us, for your own sake, for the sake of those to come."

  Dalton leaned a shoulder against the corner of the building and folded his arms as he listened. Director Prevot, from the Office of Cultural Amity, spoke from a balcony above a large crowd in one of the city squares. He had been going on for quite a while.

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  The crowd, mostly Haken, had gathered to hear of the coming events. Rumors were coursing through the city. People were frightened. They had come, mostly, not to see how they might avoid a calamity, but to see if they need bother to worry about the rumors.

  Dalton viewed the situation with concern. "Shall you suffer while the special few are rewarded?" Director Prevot called out to the crowd. They answered with a collective "No."

  "Shall you be worked to death while the chosen ones from D'Hara only grow richer?"

  Again the crowd shouted, "No!"

  "Shall we let our good works of helping all Hakens rise above their nature be cast aside by this one man? Shall we allow our people to again be led astray by the cruel deception of education?"

  The crowd shouted their agreement with Director Prevot, some waving their hats, as Dalton had instructed them to do. There were perhaps fifty of his Haken messengers in the crowd, dressed in their old clothes, doing their best to pump emotion into the responses to Director Prevot's speech.

  There were people caught up in the passion of the words, no doubt, but for the most part the crowd silently watched, judging if their own lives would be altered by what they heard. Most people weighed matters on a scale, with their life on one side, and the events before them on the other side. Most people were satisfied with the way things were, so only if the events on the other side of the scale threatened to outweigh or change their lives did they become concerned.

  Dalton was not pleased. These people, while agreeing, did not see the events on the other side of the scales as much affecting their life. Dalton knew they had a problem. The message was getting out, but it was falling on little more than indifferent ears. "He is making a lot of good points," Teresa said. Dalton hugged her shoulders. "Yes, he is."

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  "I think the man is right. The poor Hakens will only be hurt if we don't continue to see to their well-being. They aren't prepared to handle the cruelty of life on their own."

  Dalton's gaze moved among the people standing like statues as they watched the Director pour out his passion.

  "Yes, darling, you're right. We must do more to help the people."

  Dalton realized, then, what was missing, and what he 'must do.

  CHAPTER 56

  "No," RICHARD SAID TO Du Chaillu.

  She folded her arms in smoldering anger. The way her big round belly stuck out made her pose look almost humorous.

  Richard leaned toward her and lowered his voice. "Du Chaillu, can't you understand I would like to be alone with my-with Kahlan, for just a little while? Please?"

  Du Chaillu's anger faltered. Her frown melted.

  "Oh, I see. You want to be intimate with your other wife. This is good. It has been a long time."

  "That's not-" Richard put his fists on his hips. "And just how would you know, anyway?"

  She didn't answer his question, but smiled. "Well, all right then. If you promise not to take too long."

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  He wanted to say it would take as long as it took, but he feared what her answer might be. Richard straightened and said simply, "We promise."

  Captain Meiffert, a big, blond-headed D'Haran officer in charge of the troops sent to escort Richard and Kahlan to Anderith, didn't like the idea of them being alone any more than did Du Chaillu, but he was more circumspect in expressing his objections. General Reibisch had apparently told the man he could speak his mind to the Lord Rahl, if it was an important matter, without fear of punishment.

  "Lord Rahl, we would be too far away to respond should you need us.... To help protect the Mother Confessor," he added as an afterthought, thinking it might sway Richard's decision.

  "Thank you, Captain. There is only this one trail up there. Since no one knew where we were headed, no one could be lying in wait. It isn't far and we won't be gone long. You and your men will patrol down here while Kahlan and I go have a look."

  "Yes, sir," Captain Meiffert said in resignation. He immediately began issuing orders to his men, spreading them out at stations and sending some on scout.

  Richard turned to the two messengers who had come from General Reibisch. "Tell the general I'm pleased with the speed he's making, and I'm pleased to know he believes he can make it before Jagang's forces arrive. Tell him the same orders he already has are still in effect; I want him to stand off."

  Nearly every day messengers came and went, entering past different Dominie Dirtch at the border so as to be less noticed. Richard had given General Reibisch orders to stay well to the north, well beyond Jagang's screen of scouts, sentries, and spies. If it came to a fight, surprise was one of the most valuable elements the D'Haran army could possess. The general agreed with that much of it, but was loath to leave Richard with only a thousand men in potentially hostile territory.

  Richard had explained, in the letters he'd written the man,

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  that while he understood the general's concern, they needed to keep his force hidden until and unless they were called. Richard had explained in gruesome detail the horrific and futile death awaiting them at the border if the army tried to breach the Dominie Dirtch. Until they, won the agreement of the Anderith people, they dared not approach their border in force.

  Moreover, Richard didn't trust Minister Chanboor. The man's tongue was too smooth. Truth didn't wear a tongue smooth; lies did.

  The Dominie Dirtch were a spider's web waiting to claim the careless. The look of easy conquest could be a trap to lure the D'Haran force to their death. More than anything, Richard feared all those brave young men being slaughtered before the Dominie Dirtch. Especially when he knew such sacrifice could accomplish nothing. They would die and the Dominie Dirtch would still stand untouched.

  General Reibisch had written back, promising Richard that, once they were in place to the north, they would charge south without pause should Richard call upon them, but he promised to stay put until called.

  "Yes, Lord Rahl," the taller messenger said as he clapped a fist to his heart, "I will tell the general your words." They both wheeled their horses and trotted off down the road.

  Richard checked that his bow and quiver were secure before he climbed into his saddle. Kahlan flashed him her special smile as they turned their horses up the trail. She, too, Richard knew, was relieved to be alone at last, if for only a brief ride up a side trail.

  It was wearing to have people constantly around them. When they held hands, eyes took it in. If they did so in front of people while speaking to them, Richard could tell by the looks that it was news that would visit a thousand ears before a few days passed. He knew by the unblinking stares that it would be spoken of for years to come. At least it was a favorable thing for people to gossip about. Better they should talk about the married Lord Rahl and Mother Confessor holding hands than something awful.

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  Richard watched Kahlan sway in the saddle, spellbound by the taper of her body down to her waist, the flare of her hips. He thought she had just about the most allur
ing shape he had ever seen. He sometimes found it remarkable to think a woman like that would love him, a man who had grown up in a little place in Hartland.

  Richard missed his home. He guessed those feelings had surfaced because the forest trail up the mountain reminded him so much of places he knew. There were hills and mountains to the west of where he grew up, remote places, that were much like the forests and mountains in which they found themselves.

  He wished they could return to visit his home in Hartland. He had seen remarkable things since leaving the autumn before, but he guessed none held your heart like the place you grew up.

  When the trail passed near a steep decline affording a view, Richard looked off to the northwest, through gaps in the peaks. They were probably closer to where he had grown up than they had been since he left. They had come across those same mountains into the Midlands, through the boundary while it had still been up, at a place called Kings' Port. It wasn't very far to the northwest.

  Despite how close it might be, because of the weight of his responsibilities, home in Hartland was now a very distant place.

  Besides the responsibility of being Lord Rahl and having everyone depending on him, there was Jagang, who, given half a chance, would enslave the New World as he had the Old. People depended on Richard for everything from the bond that protected them from the dream walker, to pulling everyone together into one force to stand against Jagang's huge armies.

  Sometimes, when he thought about it, it seemed he was living someone else's life. Sometimes he felt like a fraud, as if people were one day going to wake up and say, "Now, wait a minute, this Lord Rahl fellow is just a woods guide

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  named Richard. And we're listening to him? We're following him into war?"

  And then there were the chimes. Richard and Kahlan were inextricably involved with the chimes. They were responsible for the chimes being in the world of life. Even though it was unintentional, they had brought forth the chimes of death.

  In their travels around Anderith to talk to people, they had heard stories of the strange deaths. The chimes were greatly enjoying their visit to the world of life. They were having a marvelous time killing people.

  In response to the danger, people had fallen back to old superstitions. In some places people gathered together to pay homage to the evil spirits loosed upon the world. Gifts of food and wine were left in clearings in the woods, or in fallow fields. Some folks thought mankind had violated moral bounds, had become too corrupt, and the avenging spirits had been sent by the Creator to punish the world.

  Some people left gifts of stones in the center of roads, and piled yet more rocks at crossroads. No one could explain to Richard exactly why, and were annoyed that he would question the old ways. Some put dead flowers out in front of their door at midnight. Good-luck charms were in great demand.

  The chimes killed anyway.

  The one thing that made the weight of it all tolerable was Kahlan. She made the effort of the struggle bearable. For her, he would endure anything.

  Kahlan raised an arm. "Just up there."

  Richard dismounted with her. Most of the trees were spruce or pine. Richard cast about until he found a young silver-leafed maple and tied the reins of their horses to a low branch. Tying reins to pine or spruce, or worse, a balsam, resulted often as not in sticky reins.

  Richard looked up when he heard a snort. Not far off, a horse, its ears perked forward, watched them. Grass hung from each side of its mouth, but it had stopped chewing.

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  "Well, hello girl," Richard called. , Wary, the horse tossed its head and backed a few steps I to add to its distance. When Richard tried to get closer, it backed away more yet, so he halted. A creamy chestnut, color, the horse had an odd leggy splotch of black on its rump. When Richard called to it again, trying to coax it closer, it turned and ran.

  "I wonder what that's about," he said to Kahlan. Kahlan held out her hand in invitation. Richard took it. "I don't know. Maybe someone's horse has gotten away. It seems to be uninterested in having anything to do with us, though."

  "I suppose," Richard said as he let her lead him by the hand.

  "This is the only way in," she told him as they walked along the lake shore, around a small clump of spruce.

  The clouds had been building all day, threatening thunderstorms. Now, as they walked out onto a nub of rock sticking up at the end of the flat spit of land, the sun emerged between the towering, billowing clouds.

  It was a beautiful sight, a shaft of warm sunlight breaking through amber clouds, slanting down between the mountains to touch the still lake. Across the way, water tumbled over a prominence of rock, sending up into the warm air a drifting mist that sparkled in the sunlight above the golden water. Richard took a deep breath, savoring the sweet aroma of woods and lake. It was almost like home.

  "This is the place." She gestured. "Up there, higher up, is the desolate place where the paka plant grows, and the gambit moth lives. These pure waters come from that poisoned area."

  The air shimmered in the afternoon light. "It's beautiful. I could stay here forever. I almost feel like I should be scouting new trails."

  They stood for a while, hand in hand, savoring the view.

  "Richard, I just wanted to tell you that the last couple of weeks as we've talked to people ... I've really been proud

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  of you. Proud of the way you've shown people hope for the future.

  "Whatever happens, I just want you to know that. That I'm-proud of the way you've handled it."

  He frowned. "You sound like you don't think we'll win."

  She shrugged. "It doesn't matter. What will be will be. People don't always do what's right. Sometimes they don't recognize evil. 'Sometimes people choose evil because it suits them or because they're afraid, or because they think they will get something for themselves out of it.

  "The most important thing is that we've done our best, and you've shown people the truth. You put their well-being, their safety, before all else, so if we do triumph, it will be for the right reasons. You've given them the chance to prove their heart."

  "We'll win." Richard gazed out over the still water. "People will see the truth in it."

  "I hope so."

  He put his arm around her neck and kissed the top of her head. He sighed with the pleasure of the mountain lake, the quiet.

  "There are places deep in the mountains to the west of where I grew up that I don't think anyone but me has ever visited. Places where the water falls from the rocks high overhead, higher than here, and makes rainbows in the afternoon air. And after you swim in the clear pools, you can curl up on the rocks behind the waterfall and watch the world through the falling water.

  "I've often dreamed of taking you there."

  Kahlan slipped her arm around his waist. "Someday, Richard, we'll visit your special places."

  As they stood close, watching the waterfall, Richard was reluctant to break the spell of the dream, especially to talk about their purpose, but at last he did.

  "So, why is it called the Ovens?"

  Kahlan lifted her chin to point. "Behind the waterfall is a cave that's warm. Sometimes hot, I'm told."

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  "I wonder why Joseph Ander mentioned the place?"

  Kahlan rested a hand on his shoulder. "Maybe even Joseph Ander appreciated a beautiful place."

  "Maybe," he mumbled as he searched the scene for a sign of why the wizard would have been interested in this spot. Richard didn't think much of Joseph Ander's sensibilities or that he had a keen appreciation of such natural beauty. While the man spoke at length about the beauty of nature, it was always in regard to the orderly makeup of a society.

  Richard noted that all the rock of the mountains around them was a peculiar greenish gray, except the rock of the cliff across the lake, where the waterfall was. That rock was darker. Not a lot, but it was definitely different. It had more gray than green in it, probably because the grain of the gra
nite had black flecks, although from the distance, it was hard to tell.

  Richard raised his arm, pointing across the lake to the wall from which the water cascaded in a majestic downward arc.

  "Look at that rock, and tell me what you think of it."

  Kahlan, her white Mother Confessor's dress glowing in the sunlight, almost looked like Richard's dream-image of a good spirit. She blinked at him.

  "What do you mean? It's a rock."

  "I know, but look at it. Tell me what strikes you about it."

  She looked at the cliff and back at him. "It's a big rock."

  "No, come on, be serious."