Witch's Oath

by Terry Goodkind

  “I can’t use magic on this,” Shale said as she desperately cut at the roots with her knife. “I can feel that Michec shielded them and his magic can overcome whatever I try to do. We have to do it with our knives. Hold on.”

  Kahlan gritted her teeth as she furiously cut through a thick root. Fortunately, it was relatively soft, rather than woody, and she was finally able to sever it, releasing the pressure and allowing him to at last draw a breath. His vision started to return from the blackness. He gasped air, angry at himself that he had let this happen.

  It took some time before Richard and Vika were finally cut free enough that they were able to untangle themselves from the network of fibrous tendrils.

  Once back on his feet, Richard lifted the sword a few inches and let it drop back, making sure the scabbard hadn’t been bent or crushed and that he would still be able to draw it.

  “Michec is pretty badly wounded,” Richard managed to say between deep breaths. He winked at Vika. “Vika managed to hurt him more than I did.”

  Vika smiled her appreciation that he had kept his promise to let her cut him good.

  “Vika has lived up to the honor as your favorite for today,” Berdine said.

  Richard wanted to respond but didn’t feel up it right then.

  “We need to go after Michec,” he said instead. “I want to kill him in case he doesn’t bleed to death. Is everyone all right?”

  A quick glance revealed nods all around.

  “All right, then, let’s go.”

  22

  “Look,” Rikka said, pointing. “Blood. And I can see more out ahead.”

  “There’s quite a lot of it, too,” Cassia said as she leaned down, taking a better look. “That will certainly make it easier to follow him. At some point it should start slowing him down, too.”

  Richard thought about it briefly and then turned back to Shale. “You can conjure things. So can you conjure blood?”

  Shale frowned a little as she considered the question. “I’ve never thought about it before, but now that you ask, I imagine so. If nothing else, I could conjure a pretty good imitation of it.”

  “Go ahead and try.” Richard gestured down at the long drizzle of blood on the stone floor. “See if you can make a blood trail that looks like that one.”

  Shale lifted her hands, her fingers wavering as she closed her eyes a moment in concentration. A wet swath of blood appeared on the floor, looking very much like the splash beside it that Rikka had found.

  “Like that?” she asked as her eyes came open and she dropped her arms.

  “Yes, that’s good.”

  “Obviously,” Shale said, “you are suggesting that the trail of blood may be a trick?”

  Richard put a hand on his hip as he tried to put himself in Michec’s place and think what he would be likely to do. “We have to assume that it’s a possibility. He’s wounded. He doesn’t want to have to fight us right now. He would want to divert us until he can deal with his injuries. The best way to do that would be to lead us into a trap. There are certainly plenty of those down here.”

  “You mean like the spiraled dead end.”

  Richard nodded to the sorceress.

  “How did you know that you could bring the ceiling down like that?” Shale asked, finally getting back to the question she had been burning to ask.

  “When I studied the plans, I saw it there. The plans were drawn so that such a trap would be constructed when the place was originally built. The way it was constructed, that ceiling was designed to fall to either trap or crush people. You just had to know how to initiate the trap. When I studied those plans, I could see how the trap could be triggered. It wasn’t too hard. You just had to know the weak spot.”

  Shale arched an incriminating eyebrow. “And did you also see the Glee hiding back in there on those same plans?”

  “Of course not,” Richard said, waving a hand dismissively. “I saw that in a prophecy while I was in the underworld.”

  “Ah. Again a prophecy.” She gestured for him to continue. “And what else did you see?”

  “I saw a prophecy that revealed where Michec would go. That’s why I had Vika go there and wait—so that she could stab him just as the prophecy said she would.”

  “Then why wasn’t he killed right there and then?” Kahlan asked. “If it was in the prophecy, why didn’t it end right there as the prophecy said?”

  Richard let out an unhappy sigh. “Because it was a forked prophecy. I saw that he would go to that spot, Vika would stab him, then we would either kill him or, if events took a less likely turn down the other fork, he would escape. Unfortunately, we are in a complication. A complication has an effect and it can twist events in prophecy.

  “It fell the wrong way for us and events in that prophecy ended up taking the other fork. That fork was less clear and soon ends without resolution. Forks in prophecy often aren’t always resolved in the particular prophecy where the first fork occurs. If it takes one of those secondary forks, then you need to find another prophecy that picks up where that particular fork left off. That’s often the problem with prophecy.”

  “So then, on the fork in which he escaped, where does he go next?” She looked off down the passageway, as if she might chance to see him. “When and where will we be able to catch him? Could you at least tell that much?”

  Richard wiped a hand over his mouth. “That particular prophecy ended either with his death, or his escape down the other fork, but that prophecy didn’t go down that secondary fork. I would have to look for the next prophecy in the chronology to hope to be able to reestablish the event line and tell where he went after he took the fork in which he escaped. I didn’t do that because once prophecy starts forking, the possibilities multiply exponentially.”

  Kahlan gave him a dark look. “If you’re thinking of returning to the world of the dead so you can look for that prophecy, you can just forget it. These two children need their father.”

  Richard flashed her a reassuring smile. “No, I promise you on my word as a wizard, I have no desire or intention of returning to the underworld to look for that prophecy.”

  Kahlan leaned in and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. “That’s my boy.”

  “So what do we do now?” Shale asked. “Follow this blood trail, or assume it’s a trick?”

  Richard put a hand back on his hip, staring down the corridor, thinking. He at last turned to her.

  “Send your wasps after him again. Let’s see where they go.”

  Shale looked off into the darkness. “I can do that, but we won’t be able to follow them for long. They fly fast.”

  “Let’s see if we can follow them long enough to see if they follow the blood or take a different route.”

  “How are you going to have the wasps follow him if you don’t know where he is or which way he went?” Berdine asked.

  Shale’s mouth widened with a sly smile. “Wasps have an excellent sense of smell. I will give them his scent and they will find him.”

  “All right, good,” Richard said. “Send them.”

  Shale again lifted her hands and waggled her fingers.

  She opened her eyes. “Done.”

  Richard looked off down the hall and saw where the buzzing swarm appeared and headed off down the corridor.

  “Come on,” he said as he started running. “We need to keep sight of them as long as possible.”

  23

  “Just as I thought,” Richard said as he came to a stop when he saw the swarm of wasps flow around a corner to swoop down and disappear in a low, round passageway made of brick. He gestured ahead, then to the round opening at the side. “The blood trail goes that way, but the wasps went down here. The blood was a trick.”

  Vika leaned down, looking into the circular passageway where the wasps had gone. “There aren’t any light spheres in this tube. We’ll need to get some and take them with us.”

  Taking her cue, the rest of the Mord-Sith raced up the hall, and each lifte
d a glass sphere from a bracket and brought it back.

  “What is this place, anyway?” Kahlan asked as she leaned down a little so she wouldn’t hit her head as she peered into the dark, brick pipe. “It doesn’t look like anything else we’ve seen down here.”

  “The complication is a low place beneath the People’s Palace.” Richard gestured off into the pipe she was peering into. “This is the lowest place in the complication. Water seeks the lowest level. This is an emergency drainage shaft in case there is ever torrential rain and the water manages to overwhelm the drainage system up above and flood all the way down here. This pipe drains the complication if needed.”

  “That makes sense for water,” Kahlan said, “but why would Michec go this way?”

  “He’s injured. I think he went in here to hide.”

  “How can he hide in this shaft? It’s round. There’s no place for him to conceal himself.”

  Richard glanced over at her. “He’s counting on us believing that. I’ve seen the plans. I know better.”

  Before entering the round passage, Richard looked over at Shale. “Don’t forget, we can’t directly use magic on the witch man, even when he is wounded. He has already proven that. But when you sent wasps after him, he wasn’t able to capture you.”

  “I think that’s because I wasn’t using magic against him, as I did the first time. I created angry wasps with a desire to attack. I wasn’t personally attacking him directly.”

  “That seems like a questionable exception,” Kahlan said. “Are you sure he can’t turn your magic back on you like the first time?”

  Shale pressed her lips tight a bit as she considered briefly. “No, no I don’t think so. The first time was a direct attack. The use of the wasps and the fire I made on the walls to each side of the passageway so Richard could see were tangential. Because they were indirect, that broke the link back to me. It doesn’t give him a direct route to return to the source, namely me, with his own power.”

  “I hate magic,” Berdine muttered. “It makes no sense.”

  Richard flashed her a brief smile and nod of agreement before he turned to the others. “We all survived back there because there were nine of us, and together we are stronger. We can’t directly use magic, but there is strength in all of us together. Remember that if we can find him.”

  Like everyone else, Richard had to bend at the waist to be able to fit into the drainage pipe. Berdine, being the shortest, only had to tip her head to the forward a little in order to fit. Because the drainage shaft was round, and they were crouched over, they had to use their hands on the brick at the side from time to time to keep their balance. As they went farther in, the round shaft started going downhill in a gentle slope in order to drain the water.

  In places water from above seeped through a series of round weep-holes in small blocks of stone set into the brick and accumulated at the bottom. The farther they went, the deeper the flowing water became, but it never reached more than ankle deep and since it was moving rather than stagnant it didn’t stink. When they came to side drains that emptied into the main drain they were in, Richard stopped.

  “Which way?” Vika asked.

  Richard thought through the plans in his mind. He looked back at all the faces watching him in the eerie light of the glass spheres.

  “We need to get to the low point. This way, straight ahead.”

  “Couldn’t you be wrong about where he would have gone?” Shale asked. “For some reason I can’t pick up his smell anymore. Couldn’t he have gone off down one of these pipes to the sides?”

  “Of course,” Richard said without looking back as he started out again. He noticed dead wasps floating in the water.

  “Then he may be planning ahead and instead of going where you think he is, he could be lurking in one of those side drains and be waiting for us in the darkness.”

  Richard looked back over his shoulder but didn’t say anything as he kept going. He knew she was right, but he had a gut feeling born of growing up tracking wounded animals. He thought that he knew where Michec would have gone to ground.

  After moving through the drainage pipe for a time, he turned back again and crossed a finger over his lips.

  “We’re close,” he whispered. “Try to move as quietly as possible.”

  He cautiously led them ahead until they reached a square opening in the floor of the drain tunnel. Water that was draining along the pipe from both directions cascaded over the edge and down into the darkness. He was glad to hear the sound it made, because it would help cover any sound they might make.

  Richard leaned toward the others, holding out his arms to gather them all in close so they could hear him. “This is the place. I think he’s down in there.”

  Kahlan glanced over at the square opening. “What is this opening?”

  “Any water that makes it down here drains into this rock drain.”

  “But what is it?” Kahlan asked.

  “It’s a massive pit filled with crushed rock. At the sides, near the top, it has a number of small pipes leading to the edge of the plateau in case there is ever too much water for the rock drain to hold. Unless it’s a huge flood, the rock pit will hold all the water and let it slowly dissipate without damaging the foundation.”

  Shale craned her neck to look over at the dark opening. “What makes you think Michec would have gone down there?”

  “Because he’s an animal. Animals go to ground when they’re injured. They instinctively seek out a hole to hide in. It makes them feel safer.”

  Shale looked skeptical. “Michec may be a beast, but he is also a person who is able to think. More than that, he’s a cunning person. People act differently than animals. You are just guessing that he’s down there hiding in a hole. He may be long gone.”

  Richard bent over and scooped up some dead wasps. He held them up before her as he lifted an eyebrow.

  Shale stared unhappily at the dead wasps, and then looked around, noticing that there were many more all over the floor. “Making conjured snakes vanish is one thing. They weren’t shielded. Killing conjured things that are shielded is altogether different. I can’t even begin to guess at his abilities and how dangerous he is.”

  “How far down to the bottom?” Kahlan asked.

  “There would be no reason for the top of the rock to be down deep in the pit. I believe the rock should come up pretty high. I doubt we could all stand up straight down in there.”

  “Why not just let him bleed out?” Kahlan asked. “Why risk going in after him?”

  “Because Shale said he just did something he shouldn’t be able to do.” Richard gave Kahlan a sympathetic look. “I’d like nothing more than to simply let him die in misery down there. But for all we know about his abilities he might be able to heal himself enough to survive. He didn’t seem concerned about cutting off the length of intestine hanging out of the gash Vika cut in him. We would never know if he managed to survive and would never expect him to come after us another time—until he unexpectedly showed up and killed us.”

  “If we’re going down in there, I think it would be better if the Mother Confessor waited up here,” Cassia said. “It would be safer than her going down in there with us.”

  “And what if I’m wrong?” Richard asked. “What if while we’re down in an empty dry pit looking for him, he’s really up here somewhere and he sneaks up from behind and murders her?”

  The worry showed in Cassia’s expression. “There is that.”

  “The nine of us need to stay together,” Richard told them. “There is no telling what Michec might do. Besides that, it may take all of us to kill him. Look at what he did with those vines. It took all of us to escape them.”

  Kahlan turned to Shale. “Would his injuries limit his ability to use magic?”

  Shale sighed. “I would like to think so, but since I don’t even know how powerful he is when he’s healthy, there is no way to be sure how much his injuries would limit his powers. Worse, even if his gif
t is limited, for all I know it still may be more than enough to kill us all. I think it best if we assume his present abilities are still quite lethal.”

  “We need to go down there and eliminate him. That’s all there is to it,” Richard said. “There is supposed to be an iron ladder going down there. Kahlan, after we jump down, you take the ladder.”

  She started to protest. “But—”

  “You’re pregnant. If it’s a bigger drop than I think, I don’t want you to take a bad fall and lose the twins. No unnecessary risks.”

  “You’re right,” she said in resignation. “The ladder it is.”

  Richard gestured around at them all. “The rest of you gather around the opening and then all jump down with me, all at once. Except you, Cassia. Stay behind and follow Kahlan down to guard her back. Once we’re down there, we can’t waste time finding him. We need to be quick. The more surprise we have on our side, the better. We don’t want to give him time to do something that could stop us.”

  He looked around until he got nods from everyone. “Enough talk. Let’s go.”

  24

  Richard landed hard on both feet, Shale right beside him. Fortunately, it wasn’t any farther down than he had thought. All the Mord-Sith, each with a light sphere, landed to the sides. Richard saw Kahlan hurrying down the iron ladder with Cassia right behind her.

  Concerned at not seeing the witch man, Richard immediately started looking into the darkness in the distance, trying to spot him. There were simple, square stone posts at regular intervals throughout the expansive pit. The posts held up arches that in turn held up the low ceiling. The loose, ragged rock filling the pit tried to twist his ankles with every step, making it difficult to walk on.

  Richard worried that the witch man might have heard them and could be hiding behind one of the massive stone supports, ready to surprise them with a lethal attack.

  Without needing orders, the Mord-Sith all immediately started spreading out in an ever-widening circle, going farther into the darkness with their light spheres, searching for the witch man. They checked behind each stone post as they moved swiftly into the distance. Richard didn’t want one of them to encounter Michec alone, so he stood ready to react if any of them spotted him.