“Is it something we can use to stop the Order?”
Staring off, deep in thought as she considered his question, Kahlan plucked the tops of the grass.
“It’s an ancient weapon of magic. With the Dominie Dirtch, Anderith has always been virtually immune to attack. They are part of the Midlands because they need us as trading partners, need a market for the vast quantities of food they grow. But with the Dominie Dirtch they’re nearly autonomous, almost outside the alliance of the Midlands.
“It’s always been a tenuous relationship. As Mother Confessors before me, I forced them to accept my authority and abide by the rulings of the Council if they were to sell their goods. Still, the Anders are a proud people, and always thought of themselves as separate, better than others.”
“That’s what they may think, but not what I think—and not what Jagang will think. So what about this weapon? Could it stop the Imperial Order, do you think?”
“Well, it hasn’t had to be used on a big scale for centuries.” Kahlan brushed the head of a stalk of grass across her chin as she thought it over. “But I can’t imagine why not. Its effectiveness discourages any attack. At least in ordinary times. Since the last large conflict, it’s only been used in relatively minor troubles.”
“What is this protection?” Cara asked. “How does it work?”
“The Dominie Dirtch is a string of defense not far in from their borders with the wilds. It’s a line of huge bells, spaced far apart, but within sight of one another. They stand guard across the entire Anderith frontier.”
“Bells,” Richard said. “How do these bells protect them? You mean they’re used to warn people? To call their troops?”
Kahlan waved her stalk of grass the way an instructor might wave a switch to dissuade a student from getting the wrong idea. Zedd used to wave his finger in much the same way, adding that impish smile so as not to give Richard a harsh impression as he was being corrected. Kahlan, though, was not correcting, but schooling, and as far as the Midlands were concerned, Richard was still very much a student.
The word “schooling” stuck in his head as soon as it crossed his mind.
“Not that kind of bell,” Kahlan said. “They don’t really look much like bells, other than their shape. They’re carved from stone that over the ages has become encrusted with lichen and such. They are like ancient monuments. Terrible monuments.
“Jutting up as they do from the soil of the plains, marching off in a line to the horizon, they almost look like the vertebrae of some huge, dead, endlessly long monster.”
Richard scratched his jaw in wonder. “How big are they?”
“They stand up above the grass and wheat on these fat stone pedestals, maybe eight or ten feet across.” She passed her hand over her head. “The pedestals are about as tall as we are. Steps going up the bell itself are cut into each base. The bells are, I don’t know, eight, nine feet tall, including the carriage.
“The back of each bell, carved as part of the same stone, is a round… like a shield. Or a little like a wall lamp might have a reflector behind it. The Anderith army mans each bell at all times. When an enemy approaches, the soldier, when given the order, stands behind the shield, and the Dominie Dirtch—these bells—are then struck with a long wooden striker.
“They emit a very deep knell. At least behind the Dominie Dirtch it’s said to be a deep knell. No one attacking has ever lived to say what it sounds like from that side, from the death zone.”
Richard had gone from simple wonder to astonishment. “What do the bells do to the attackers? What does this sound do?”
Kahlan rolled the heads of the grass in her fingers, crumbling them.
“It sloughs the flesh right off the bones.”
Richard couldn’t even imagine such a horrific thing. “Is this a legend, do you think, or do you know it to be a fact?”
“I once saw the results—some primitive people from the wilds intent on a raid as retribution for harm to one of their women by an Anderith soldier.”
She shook her head despondently. “It was a grisly sight, Richard. A pile of bloody bones in the middle of a, a… gory heap. You could see hair in it—parts of scalp. And the clothes. I saw some fingernails, and the whorled flesh from a fingertip, but I could recognize little else. Except for those few bits, and the bones, you wouldn’t even know it had been human.”
“That would leave no doubt; the bells use magic,” Richard said. “How far out does it kill? And how quickly?”
“As I understand it, the Dominie Dirtch kill every person in front of them for about as far as the eye can see. Once they’re rung, an invader takes only a step or two before their skin undergoes catastrophic ruptures. Muscle and flesh begin coming away from bone. Their insides—heart, lungs, everything—drops from under the rib cage as their intestines all give way. There is no defense. Once begun, all before the Dominie Dirtch die.”
“Can an invader sneak up at night?” Richard asked.
Kahlan shook her head. “The land is flat so the defenders are able to see for miles. At night torches can be lit. Additionally, a trench extends in front of the entire line so no one can crawl up unseen through the grass or wheat. As long as the line of Dominie Dirtch is manned, there’s no way to get past it. At least, it has been thousands of years since anyone has gotten past.”
“Does the number of invaders matter?”
“From what I know of it, the Dominie Dirtch could kill any number gathered together and marched toward Anderith, toward those stone bells, as long as the defending soldiers kept ringing them.”
“Like an army…” Richard whispered to himself.
“Richard, I know what you’re thinking, but with the chimes loose, magic is failing. It would be a foolhardy risk to depend on the Dominie Dirtch to stop Jagang’s army.”
Richard watched Du Chaillu off in the grass, her head in her hands as she wept.
“But you said Anderith also has a large army.”
Kahlan sighed impatiently. “Richard, you promised Zedd we would go to Aydindril.”
“I did. But I didn’t promise him when.”
“You implied it.”
He turned back to face her. “It wouldn’t break the promise to go somewhere else first.”
“Richard—”
“Kahlan, maybe with magic failing, Jagang sees this as his chance to successfully invade Anderith and capture its stores of food.”
“That would be bad for us, but the Midlands has other sources of food.”
“And what if food isn’t the only reason Jagang is going to Anderith?” He cocked an eyebrow. “He has people with the gift. They would know as well as Zedd and Ann that magic was failing. What if they could figure out it was the chimes? What if Jagang saw this as his chance to take a formerly invincible land, and then, if things change, if the chimes are banished…?”
“He would have no way of knowing it was the chimes, but even if he did, how could he know what to do to banish them?”
“He has some gifted people with him. Gifted from the Palace of the Prophets. Those men and women have studied the books in the vaults there. For hundreds of years they’ve studied those books. I can’t imagine how much they know. Can you?”
The emerging possibilities and implications etched alarm into Kahlan’s face. “You think they may have a way to banish the chimes?”
“I have no idea. But if they did—or went to Anderith and there uncovered the solution—think about what it would mean. Jagang’s army, en masse, would be in the Midlands, behind the Dominie Dirtch, and there wouldn’t be anything we could do to rout them.
“At their will, they could, where and when they wish, charge into the Midlands. Anderith is a big land. With the Dominie Dirtch in his control, we would be unable to scout beyond the border and so would have no idea where his troops were massing. We couldn’t possibly begin to guard the entire border, yet his spies would be able to sneak out to detect where our armies waited, and then slip back in to report
to Jagang.
“He could then race out through holes in a net spread too thin and drive his attack into the Midlands. If need be, they could strike a blow and then withdraw back behind the Dominie Dirtch. If he used just a little planning and patience, he could wait until he found a weak place, with our troops too distant to respond in time, and then his entire army could roar through gaps in our lines and into the Midlands. Once past our forces, they could rampage virtually unchecked, with us only able to nip at their heels as we chased after them.
“Once ensconced behind the stone curtain of the Dominie Dirtch, time would be on his side. He could wait a week, a month, a year. He could wait ten years, until we became dull and weak from bearing the weight of constant vigilance. Then, he could suddenly burst out upon us.”
“Dear spirits,” Kahlan whispered. She gave him a sharp look. “This is all just speculation. What if they don’t really have a way to banish the chimes?”
“I don’t know, Kahlan. I’m just saying ‘what if’? We have to decide what to do. If we decide wrong, we could lose it all.”
Kahlan let out a breath. “You’re right about that.”
Richard turned and watched Du Chaillu kneel down. Her hands were folded, her head bowed, in what looked to be earnest prayer.
“Does Anderith have any books, any libraries?”
“Well, yes,” Kahlan said. “They have a huge Library of Culture, as they call it.”
Richard lifted an eyebrow. “If there is an answer, why does it have to be in Aydindril? In Kolo’s journal? What if the answer, if there is one, is in their library?”
“If there really is an answer in some book.” Wearily, Kahlan gripped a handful of her long hair hanging down over her shoulder. “Richard, I agree that all of this is worrisome, but we have a duty to others to act responsibly. Lives, nations, are at stake. If it came down to a sacrifice of one land to save the rest, I would reluctantly, and with great sorrow, leave that land to their fate while I did my duty to the greater number.
“Zedd told us we had to get to Aydindril in order to reverse the problem. He may have called it by another name, but the problem is much the same. If doing as he asked will stop the chimes, then we must do it. We have a duty to act in our best judgment to the benefit of all.”
“I know.” The millstone of responsibility could be unnerving. They needed to go both places. “There’s just something about this whole thing that’s bothering me, and I can’t figure it out. Worse, I fear the lives it will cost if we make the wrong choice.”
Her fingers closed around his arm. “I know, Richard.”
He threw up his hands and turned away. “I really need to take a look at that book, Mountain’s Twin.”
“But didn’t Ann say she wrote in her journey book to Verna, and Verna said it had been destroyed?”
“Yes, so there’s no way—” Richard spun back to her. “Journey book.” A flash of realization ignited. “Kahlan, the journey books are how the Sisters communicate when one goes on a long journey away from the others.”
“Yes, I know.”
“The journey books were made for them by the wizards of old—back in the time of the great war.”
Her face twisted with a puzzled frown. “And?”
Richard made himself blink. “The books are paired. You can only communicate with the twin of the one you have.”
“Richard I don’t see—”
“What if the wizards used to do the same thing? The Wizard’s Keep in Aydindril was always sending wizards off on missions. What if that’s how they knew what was going on everywhere? How they coordinated everything? What if they used them just like the Sisters of the Light used them? After all, wizards of that time created the spell around the Palace of the Prophets and created the journey books for the Sisters to use.”
She was frowning. “I’m still not sure I understand—”
Richard gripped her shoulders. “What if the book that was destroyed, Mountain’s Twin, is a journey book? The twin to Joseph Ander’s journey book?”
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Kahlan was speechless.
Richard squeezed her shoulders. “What if the other, Joseph Ander’s half of that pair, still exists?”
She wet her lips. “It’s possible they might keep something like that in Anderith.”
“They must. They revere him—after all, they named their land in his honor. It seems only logical that if it still existed they would keep such a book.”
“It’s possible. But that isn’t always the way, Richard.”
“What do you mean?”
“Sometimes a person isn’t appreciated in his own time. Sometimes they aren’t recognized as important until much later, and sometimes then only to promote the contemporary causes of those currently in power. Evidence of a person’s true thoughts can be an inconvenience in such cases, and sometimes is destroyed.
“Even if that isn’t the case, and they did respect his thinking, the land changed its name to Anderith since Zedd left the Midlands. Sometimes people are revered because not enough remains of their philosophy for people to find objectionable, and so the person can become valuable as a symbol. Most likely nothing of Joseph Ander’s remains.”
Taken aback by the logic of her words, Richard rubbed his chin as he considered.
“The other unknown,” he finally said, “is that words written in journey books can be wiped away, to make room for new communications. Even if everything I’m thinking is true, and he wrote back to the Keep with the solution to the chimes, the book still exists, and it’s actually in Anderith, it still might do us no good, because that passage could easily have been wiped clean to make room for a future message.
“But,” he added, “it’s the only solid possibility we have.”
“No, it isn’t,” Kahlan insisted. “Another choice, and the one with more weight of credibility on its side, is what we must do back at the Wizard’s Keep.”
Richard felt himself drawn inexorably toward Joseph Ander’s legacy. If he had any proof that his attraction to it wasn’t simply his imagination, he would have been convinced.
“Kahlan, I know…”
His voice trailed off. The hairs at the back of his neck began rising, prickling his neck like needles of ice. His golden cloak lifted lethargically in the lazy breeze. The slow wave billowing through it cracked like a whip when it reached the corner. The skin on his arms danced with gooseflesh.
Richard felt the gossamer fingers of wickedness slipping up his spine.
“What’s the matter?” Kahlan asked, consternation chilling her expression.
Without answering, gripped by dread, he turned and scanned the grassland. Emptiness stared back. Verdant waves rippled before him, painted with bold strokes of sunlight. In the distance knots of dark clouds at the horizon boiled from within with flickering light. Even though he couldn’t hear the thunder, every now and again he could feel the drumbeat underfoot.
“Where’s Du Chaillu?”
Cara, standing a few paces away as she kept an eye on the idle men, pointed. “I saw her off that way a few minutes ago.”
Richard searched but didn’t see her. “Doing what?”
“She was crying. Then I think she looked like she might have been going to sit down for a rest, or maybe to pray.”
That was Richard had seen, too.
He called out Du Chaillu’s name over the grasslands. In the distance, a meadowlark’s crystalline song warbled across the vast silence of the plains. He cupped his hands beside his mouth and called again. The blade masters, when there was no answer the second time, sprang to action, fanning out into the grass to search.
Richard trotted off in the direction Cara had pointed, the direction he, too, remembered last seeing her. Kahlan and Cara were right on his heels as he picked up speed, cutting through the tall grass and splashing through puddles. The blade masters and hunters searched as they ran, and with no reply as all called Du Chaillu’s name, their search became frantic.
Th
e grass, a singular, undulating, sentient thing alive with mocking contempt, teased them with bowing nods to draw the eye first here, and then there, hinting but never divulging where it hid her.
Out of the side of his vision, Richard caught sight of a dark shape, distinct from the mellow green of new grass rising and falling above the washed-out tan of the lifeless stalks beneath the waves. He cut to the right, muddling leadenly through a spongy area where the mat of grass, as if it floated on a sea of mud, kept giving way beneath his feet.
The ground firmed. He spotted the out-of-place dark shape and altered his course slightly as he splashed through an expanse of standing water.
Richard came suddenly upon her. Du Chaillu reposed in the grass, looking like she might be sleeping, her dress smoothed down to the backs of her knees, her legs below it a pasty white.
She was facedown in water only inches deep.
Racing through the wet grass, Richard dove over her to avoid falling on her. He snatched the shoulders of her dress and yanked her back, rolling her onto her back on the grass beside him. The front of her sodden dress plastered itself across her pronounced pregnancy. Strings of wet hair lay across her bloodless face.
Du Chaillu stared up with dark dead eyes.
She had that same odd, lingering look of lust in her eyes Juni had had when Richard found him drowned in the shallow stream.
Richard shook her cold limp body. “No! Du Chaillu! No! I saw you alive only a minute ago! You can’t be dead! Du Chaillu!”
Her mouth slack, her arms splayed clumsily, she exhibited no response. There was no response to show. She was gone.
When Kahlan put a comforting hand on his shoulder, he fell back with an angry cry of anguish.
“She was just alive,” Cara said. “I just saw her alive only moments ago.”
Richard buried his face in his hands. “I know. Dear spirits, I know. If only I’d realized what was happening.”
Cara pulled his hands away from his face. “Lord Rahl, her spirit might still be with her body.”
Blade masters and Mud People hunters were tumbling to their knees all around.
Soul of the Fire Page 37
