5 Soul of the Fire

by Goodkind, Terry

  A man near the platform held up his young girl on his shoulders for the people to see. "She has something to say! Let her speak! Please! Hear my child!"

  The crowd called out encouragement. The girl, ten or twelve years old, climbed the steps at the side and, looking determined, marched across the platform to stand at the rail. The crowd quieted to hear her.

  "Please, dear Creator, hear our prayers. Keep Lord Rahl from making war," she said in a voice powered by simplistic adolescent zeal. She looked to her father. He nodded and she went on. "We don't want his war. Please, dear Creator, make Lord Rahl give peace a chance."

  Richard felt as if an arrow of ice had pierced his heart. He wanted to explain to the child, explain a thousand things, but he knew she would not understand a one of them. Kahlan's hand on his back was cold comfort.

  Another girl, maybe a year or two younger, climbed the

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  steps to join the first. "Please, dear Creator, make Lord Rahl give peace a chance."

  A line was forming, parents bearing children of all ages to the steps. They all had similar messages. Most stepped forward and simply said, "Give peace a chance," some not seeming to even comprehend the words they spoke before they returned to proud parents.

  It was plain to Richard that the children had been practicing the words all day. The words were not the language of children. That hardly softened the hurt, knowing they believed it."

  Some of the children were reluctant, some were nervous, but most seemed proud and happy to be part of the great event. By the passion in their voices, he could tell the older ones believed they were speaking profound words that had a chance to alter history, and avert what was, to them, a pointless loss of life, a disaster for nothing of any good.

  A young boy asked, "Dear Creator, why does Lord Rahl want to hurt children? Make him give peace a chance."

  The crowd went wild cheering him. At seeing the reaction, he repeated it, and again it was cheered. Many in the crowd were weeping.

  Richard and Kahlan shared a look beyond words. It was obvious to them both that this was no spontaneous .outpouring of sentiment; this was a groomed and rehearsed message. They had been getting reports of this sort of thing, but to see it made his blood run cold.

  A man Richard recognized as a Director named Prevot finally stepped up onto the platform.

  "Lord Rahl, Mother Confessor," the man shouted out over the crowd, "if you could hear me now, I would ask, why would you bring your vile magic to our peace-loving people? Why would you try to drag us into your war, a war we don't want?

  "Listen to the children, for theirs are the words of wisdom!

  "There is no reason to resort to conflict before dialogue. If you cared about the lives of innocent children, you would

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  sit down with the Imperial Order and resolve your differences. The Order is willing, why are you not? Could it be you want this war so you might conquer what isn't yours? So you may enslave those who reject you?

  "Listen to the wise words of all these children and please, in the name of all that is good, give peace a chance!"

  The crowd took up the chant, "Give peace a chance. Give peace a chance. Give peace a chance." The man let it go on for a time, and then started in again.

  "Our new Sovereign has much work to do for us! We desperately need his guiding hand. Why must Lord Rahl insist on distracting our Sovereign from the work of the people? Why would Lord Rahl put our children at such great peril?

  "For his greed!" the man shouted in answer to his own questions. "For his greed!"

  Kahlan put a comforting hand on Richard's shoulder. He felt little comfort. He was watching all his work being consumed by the heat from the flame of lies.

  "Dear Creator," Director Prevot called out, lifting his clasped hands to the sky, "we give thanks for our new Sovereign. A man of peerless talent and unrivaled devotion, the most ethical Sovereign ever to reign over us. Please, dear Creator, give him strength against the wicked ways of Lord Rahl."

  Director Prevot spread his arms. "I ask you, good people, to consider this man from afar. A man who took the Mother Confessor of all the Midlands to be his wife."

  The crowd grumbled in growing displeasure-the Mother Confessor, after all, was their Mother Confessor.

  "Yet this man, this man who shouts for all to hear of his moral leadership, of his desire for what is right, already has another wife! Wherever he goes, he takes her, too, fat with his child! Yet as this other wife still carries his unborn child, he marries the Mother Confessor, and drags her with him, too, as his concubine! How many more women will this sinful man take to sire his wicked offspring? How many bastard children has he created here, in Anderith? How

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  many of our women have fallen to his boundless lust?"

  The crowd was genuinely shocked. Besides the moral implications, this was a disgrace to the Mother Confessor.

  "This other woman proudly admits being Lord Rahl's wife, and further confirms it to be his child! What kind of man is this?

  "Lady Chanboor was so shocked by this uncivilized conduct she took to her bed, weeping, to recover her senses! The Sovereign is beside himself with the scandal of such behavior being brought into Anderith. They both ask that you reject this rutting, pig from D'Hara!"

  Du Chaillu pulled on Richard's sleeve. "This is not true. I will go explain it to them, so they may see it is not evil, as this man says. I will explain it."

  Richard put a restraining hand on her. "You're doing no such thing. These people wouldn't listen."

  Jiaan spoke in heated words. "Our spirit woman is not a woman who would be immoral. She must explain that she has acted by the law."

  "Jiaan," Kahlan said, "Richard and I know the truth. You and Du Chaillu and the others with you, you all know the truth. That is what matters. These people have no ears for the truth.

  "This is how tyrants win the will of the people: with lies."

  Having seen enough, Richard was about to turn to go when a bright orange whoosh of fire erupted out in the crowd. A candle, presumably, ignited a girl's dress. She let out a piercing scream. Her hair caught fire.

  By the speed of the fire, Richard realized it was no accident.

  The chimes were among them.

  Not far away, a man's clothes caught flame. The crowd went into a terrible fright, screaming in fear that Lord Rahl was using magic against them.

  It was a frightening, sickening sight, seeing the girl and the man flailing as crackling flames raced up their clothes, the sizzling fire catching as if they had been dunked in pitch, as if the fire were a thing alive.

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  The crowd scattered in panic, knocking both old and young sprawling. Parents tried to cover the burning girl with a shirt to put out the fire, but it, too, ignited, adding fuel to the conflagration. The burning man crumbled to the ground. He was little more than a dark stick figure in the center of an intense yellow-orange blaze..

  As if the good spirits themselves could no longer stand it, the skies opened up in a downpour. The roar of the rain drumming the dry ground covered the roar of the fire and the shouts and cries of the people. Darkness descended as the candles were extinguished by the rain. In the square, two fires continued to burn: the girl and the man. The chimes danced over their flesh in liquid light. There was nothing to be done for the two souls lost.

  If Richard didn't do something, there would be nothing to be done for anyone; the chimes would consume the world of life.

  Kahlan pulled Richard away. It required little effort. They ran back through the darkness and rain and gathered up their horses and the rest of the men. Richard, leading his horse by the reins, guided them to a side route through Fairfield.

  "The reports were accurate," Richard said as he leaned toward Kahlan. "It's clear these people have been turned against us."

  "Fortunately the vote is only a few days off," Kahlan answered back through the din of rain. "We may lose some people here, but at least we h
ave a chance with the rest of Anderith."

  As they walked their horses through the rain, Richard moved the reins to his other hand and put an arm around Kahlan's shoulders. "Truth will win out."

  Kahlan didn't answer.

  "The important thing is the chimes," Du Chaillu said. She looked both saddened and frightened. "Whatever else happens, the chimes must be stopped. I do not want to die again by them. I do not want our child to die by them.

  "Whatever happens here, this is only one place. The chimes, though, are everywhere. I do not want to bring my

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  baby into a world with the chimes. There will be no safe place if they are not stopped. That is your true job, Caharin."

  Richard put his arm around her shoulders. "I know. I know. Maybe I can find the thing I need in the library at the estate."

  "The Minister and Sovereign have taken the other side," Kahlan said. "They may not be interested in allowing us to use the library any longer."

  "We're using it," Richard said, "one way, or another."

  He guided them down a street that paralleled the main avenue, a street that once out of the city would turn to join into the main road toward the Minister's estate. It was on that road, closer to the estate, that their troops were stationed.

  Richard noticed Kahlan staring off at something. He followed her gaze in the rain and darkness to a small sign visible in the lamplight coming from a window beneath it.

  The sign offered herbs for sale and the services of a midwife.

  Du Chaillu was huge. Richard supposed that she must be near to having her baby-whether she wanted it to be born into such a world or not.

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  CHAPTER 61

  IT HAD BEEN A long day, the last hour of it spent slogging through the drenching downpour to where the remainder of their troops were stationed. Well over half of them had been sent off around Anderith to oversee the upcoming vote. Feeling ill, Du Chaillu was in no condition to ride; it was a miserable walk and exhaustion finally claimed her-not something she would have admitted lightly. Richard and Jiaan took turns carrying her the remaining distance.

  Richard was thankful for the rain for one reason, though. It had cooled the tempers of the throng in Fairfield and sent them home.

  Ordinarily Richard would have insisted that Du Chaillu go straight off to her own tents but after the events in Fairfield, he understood her gloomy mood and realized she needed their company more than she needed rest. Kahlan must have understood, too, for rather than chasing the spirit woman from their tent, as she had had to do on more than one occasion, she gave her a dried tava biscuit to suck on, saying it would settle her stomach. Kahlan sat Du Chaillu down on the padded blanket that was the bed and with a towel dried her face and hair while Jiaan went to get her some dry clothes.

  Richard sat at the small folding table he used to write

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  messages, orders, and letters, mostly to General Reibisch. After having been to the city, he desperately wanted to write the general and order him into Anderith.

  From outside the tent, a muffled voice asked permission to enter. When Richard granted it, Captain Meiffert lifted back the heavy flap, propping it up with a pole to act as a little roof to keep the rain from their doorway. He shook himself, as best he could, under the small roof before stepping inside.

  "Captain," Richard said, "I would like to compliment you and your men on the reports. They have been dead accurate about what's going on in Fairfield. The spirits know I wish I could yell at you and dismiss the messengers for getting it wrong, or embellishing the facts, but I can't. They were only too right."

  Captain Meiffert didn't look pleased to have gotten it right. The situation was nothing to be pleased about. With a finger, he wiped his wet blond hair across his forehead.

  "Lord Rahl, I believe we should now bring General Reibisch's army south, into Anderith. The situation is growing more tenuous by the day. I have a fistful of reports about special Ander guard troops. They are reported to be not at all like the regular Anderith army we have seen."

  "I agree with the captain," Kahlan said from the ground beside Du Chaillu. "We need to be in the library, trying to find something of use against the chimes. We don't have time to counter the things being said to sway people to reject us."

  "That's just here," Richard said.

  "Are you so sure? What if it's not? Besides, as I said, we don't have the luxury of time to devote to it. We have more important things to worry about."

  "The Mother Confessor is right," Captain Meiffert insisted.

  "I have to believe truth will win out. Otherwise, what is there left to do? Lie to people to get them to join our side?"

  "It seems to be working for those who oppose us," Kahlan pointed out.

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  Richard wiped his wet hair back from his forehead. "Look, there's nothing I would like better than to simply call General Reibisch down here. Really, there isn't. But we can't."

  Captain Meiffert wiped water from his chin. The man seemed to have anticipated the reason for Richard's reluctance and was ready with a reply.

  "Lord Rahl, we have enough men here. We can send word to the general, and before he comes into sight, we can take the Dominie Dirtch from the Anderith army and safely let our men through."

  "I've run that very thought through my mind a thousand times," Richard said. "One thing keeps ringing a warning in my head."

  "What's that?" Kahlan asked.

  Richard turned sideways on his small folding stool so he might speak to her as well as the captain.

  "We don't know for sure how the Dominie Dirtch work."

  "So, we ask someone here," Kahlan said.

  "It's not a weapon they use. We can't count on their expertise. Yes, they know that if they're being attacked they ring the things and the enemy will be killed."

  "Lord Rahl, we have a thousand men, once they all return from watching the vote. We can take the Dominie Dirtch in a wide swath and General Reibisch will be able to safely bring his army through. Then we can use his men to take the rest, all along the frontier, and the Imperial Order will not be able to get through. Perhaps they will even approach, thinking they will be able to pass, and then we will have the opportunity to use the Dominie Dirtch against them."

  Richard turned the candle on the table round and round in his fingers as he listened, and then in the silence that followed.

  "There's one problem with that," he said at last, "and that is what I've already said: we aren't sure how they work."

  "We know the basics of the things," Kahlan said, her frustration growing.

  "But the problem is," Richard said, "that we don't know

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  enough. First of all, we can't take all the Dominie Dirtch all along the frontier. There are too many-they run along the entire border. We could only take some, like you suggested, Captain.

  "Therein lies the problem. Remember when we came through? How those people were killed when the Dominie Dirtch rang?"

  "Yes, but we don't know why they rang," Kahlan said. "Besides, what difference does that make?"

  "What if we capture a stretch of the Dominie Dirtch," Richard said, looking back and forth between. Kahlan and Captain Meiffert, "and then tell General Reibisch it's safe to bring his army in. What if, when all those men are just about there, Anderith soldiers somewhere else, ones still in control of the Dominie Dirtch, ring theirs?"

  "So what?" Kahlan asked. "They will be too far away."

  "Are you sure?" Richard leaned toward her for emphasis. "What if that rings them all? What if they know how to ring the entire line?

  "Remember when we came in, how they said they all rang, and everyone out in front of the Dominie Dirtch was killed? They all rang together, as one."

  "But they didn't know why they all rang," Kahlan said. "The soldiers didn't ring them."

  "How do you know that one person somewhere along that entire line didn't ring their Dominie Dirtch, and caused them all to ring? Ma
ybe accidentally, and they're too afraid to admit it for fear of their punishment, or perhaps one of those young people stationed there, out of boredom, just wanted to try it?

  "What if the same thing happens while our army is out there before those murderous things? Can you imagine? General Reibisch has near to a hundred thousand men- maybe more by now. Can you imagine his entire force killed in one instant?"

  Richard looked from Kahlan's calm face to the captain's alarmed expression. "Our entire army down here in the South, at once, dead. Imagine it."