“Adie, we made it. Your plan worked. You did it. You got us through.”
“I be pleased, Richard.” She smiled just a little. “But now you must help Nicci.”
“Worry about yourself for now.”
She clutched his arm, pulling him a little closer. “You must help her. My part be done. She be your only chance, now, to save all we hold dear in this world.”
“But—”
“Help Nicci. She be your only hope now. Promise me you will help her.”
Richard nodded as he felt a tear run down his cheek. “I promise.”
Her smile widened, pushing back the fine wrinkles of her cheeks.
Richard couldn’t help smiling at realizing what she had
just done. Zedd had once told him about how sorceresses never tell all they know and in that way lull you into agreeing to things you might not otherwise accept.
“I don’t need a sorceress’s trick to keep my promise to help Nicci. Nathan will get the collar off her neck.”
As she smiled at him, Richard felt her hand tighten just a little. “I not be so sure, Richard. She need help only you can give.”
Richard didn’t know what he could do that Nathan couldn’t. Even if he knew how to use his gift, Richard had long ago lost his connection to it. When Adie’s eyes slipped closed and Jillian started to cry with worry, General Meiffert put an arm around her shoulders.
“Lord Rahl!” Cara called.
Both Richard and Nathan looked back at the Mord-Sith hunched over Nicci.
“Hurry!”
“Hold on,” Nathan whispered to Adie.
He touched a finger to her forehead. Adie sighed, her muscles slackening.
“That will comfort her for the moment,” Nathan said in a confidential tone to Richard. “Maybe with the help of some Sisters I can do something more for her.”
Richard nodded, then seized Nathan under the arm and helped pull the man to his feet. On their way to Nicci’s side they rushed past tangled figures of the dead. Most of the slain were Imperial Order soldiers, but there were also men of the First File scattered throughout the corridor.
Nicci, if it was possible, looked worse. She shook from the unseen power trying to crush the life out of her.
“You have to get the collar off her,” Richard told Nathan. “Jagang has been using the Rada’Han to control her. Now I think he’s trying to kill her with it.”
Nathan, nodding as he lifted Nicci’s eyelid, swiftly evaluated her condition. He reached out, then, and placed both
hands on the smooth metal collar around her neck. He closed his eyes for a moment, his brow drawing down with the effort of using unseen powers. The air all around seemed to hum with a soft vibration. After a moment the discordant sensation died away.
“I’m sorry, Richard,” he said in a quiet voice as he finally straightened.
“What do you mean, you’re sorry? It’s still locked on her. You have to get this thing off before it kills her.”
Nathan glanced around at all the dead, his azure eyes looking a little wetter than they had a moment before. His sorrowful gaze finally returned to Richard.
“I’m sorry, my boy, but there’s nothing I can do.”
“Yes there is,” Cara said. “You can get the collar off her!”
“I would if I could”—with a dejected look he shook his head—“but I can’t. It’s held on with both sides of her gift. I have only Additive.”
Richard couldn’t accept it. “The palace amplifies your ability. You’re a Rahl. Your power is greater in this place. You have more power here. Use it!”
“My Additive side is strengthened here…but I have no Subtractive ability to amplify. Without the Subtractive side to counter the lock, I can do nothing.”
“You can try!”
Nathan rested a hand on Richard’s shoulder. “I already tried. My ability is not enough. I’m sorry, my boy. I’m afraid that I can do nothing.”
“But if you don’t, she’ll die.”
Looking into Richard’s eyes, Nathan slowly nodded. “I know.”
General Meiffert appeared behind Nathan. “Lord Rahl.”
Both Nathan and Richard looked up.
He hesitated for an instant, looking between them both. “We have to do something before they can send more men through those tunnels. There’s no telling how many soldiers
are still down there in the other halls and rooms, waiting to come up and renew the attack. We must act now.”
“Purge the tunnels,” Richard said, his own voice sounding hollow to him.
“What?” Nathan asked.
“Clear the corridors first—make sure there are no more Order soldiers up here. Then use wizard’s fire. Send it down through the catacombs. The catacombs are places of the dead. Purge them of the living.”
Nathan nodded. “I’ll see to it at once.”
As he stood, Richard, tightly gripping Nicci’s hand, looked up at the tall wizard. “Nathan, there has to be something you can do.”
“I can keep any more of them from getting through.”
“I mean for Nicci. What can we do to help her?”
From the desolate depths of his own inner torment, Nathan gazed down at Richard. “Stay with her, Richard. Be with her until she’s gone. Don’t let her be alone in the last moments. That’s all you can do now.”
With a flourish of his cape he turned and rushed after General Meiffert.
Cara, sitting on her heels beside him, laid a hand compassionately on Richard’s shoulder as he bent over Nicci.
He felt dead himself.
He wrapped Nicci protectively in his arms, unable to offer her any real protection, any salvation—unable to offer her redemption from Jagang’s claim on her life.
The totality of the events that had carried him to that point in his life seemed to overwhelm him. No matter what he did, the believers in the Imperial Order advanced their cause steadily onward. In their fanaticism, they were determined to wipe all joy from life, to squeeze any meaning from it, to curdle existence itself into unbearable misery.
Devoted to their mindless faith in a perfect, eternal afterlife gained through sacrifice of this life, the followers of the Order lusted to see to it that everyone who dared to want to exist for the sake of this life alone was made to suffer immeasurably for that singular, intolerable, sinful desire.
Richard hated them. He hated them passionately for all the harm they inflicted on others.
He wished he could wipe them all from the world of life.
Nicci, despite being largely unresponsive, tightened an arm around his neck as if to comfort him in his grief, as if
to tell him that it was all right, that she too, like so many all around who had fought and died to defend their way of life, the right of their loved ones to live safe from violence brought against them for simply desiring to live free, would soon be at eternal peace beyond the reach of pain. Even though he knew that she would at last be free of terrible suffering, and out of Jagang’s reach, Richard couldn’t bear the thought of her leaving the world of life.
At that moment, everything seemed futile to Richard. Everything good in life was being methodically destroyed by people who fervently believed that their pious purpose in life was to murder those who would not bow down and submit to the Order’s beliefs.
The world was in the grip of utter madness.
So many had already died, so many more would die. Richard felt as if he were caught in a whirl pool, forever being sucked down into the depths of despair. There seemed no end to the senseless slaughter, no escape from it but death.
And now Nicci was taking that final journey.
He had just wanted to live his life with the woman he loved, the same as so many others. Instead, Kahlan’s mind had been stolen from her, leaving her a tool of those with a burning desire to either impose their beliefs on everyone or to destroy them all. While he might have helped Kahlan get away for the moment, Jagang’s minions would be hunting her. None of them would ever give up. Unless they were stopped, the Order would have Kahlan just as it would have everyone.
Now Nicci was being slowly drained of her life as well.
As Richard turned inward, turned away from everyone and everything, he felt a sudden, violent, wrenching jolt within. For a moment it held him gripped in a strange and silent netherworld before tumbling him once again into an inner storm.
He didn’t know the source of the inner disorientation,
but it suddenly felt as if he had become lost among a million meteors. And then they all exploded outward from somewhere within the unfathomable depths of his being.
Cara grabbed his arm and shook him. “Lord Rahl! What’s wrong? Lord Rahl!”
He realized that he was screaming. He couldn’t stop himself.
Amid the incandescence, understanding overcame him.
He suddenly knew without a doubt the cause of the sensation.
It was an awakening.
The glorious power of that rebirth was staggering. Every fiber of his being was suddenly on fire with the life of it. At the same time, the marrow of every bone rang out in pain so monumental that it nearly rendered him senseless.
He could feel his birthright burning again within, feel himself whole again for the first time in what seemed forever. It was almost as if he had forgotten who he was, what he was, as if he’d lost his way and it had all suddenly returned in one blinding instant.
His gift had returned. He had no idea why or how, but it had returned.
The thing that kept him conscious, though, kept his mind focused, was his seething rage at those who through the self-justification of their own twisted beliefs harmed others who didn’t think as they did.
In that moment as his blinding rage at all those who existed to hate and hurt others again flowed through that integral connection with his gift, he heard a metallic pop.
Nicci gasped.
Richard, almost unaware of what was happening, realized that her arms were around him, and she was gasping to catch her breath.
“Lord Rahl,” Cara said, shaking him, “look! The collar came off! And the gold ring that was in her lip is gone.”
Richard backed away to peer down into Nicci’s blue eyes. She was staring up at him. The Rada’Han had burst apart and was lying broken behind her neck.
“Your gift is back,” Nicci whispered, barely conscious. “I can sense it.”
He knew without doubt that it was true. His gift had inexplicably returned.
He noticed a forest of legs as he glanced around. Men of the First File, weapons in hand, had surrounded him. Ulic and Egan stood between them and Richard. Between Ulic and Egan was a wall of red leather.
Richard realized that when the burning pain of it had exploded through him he had screamed. They had probably thought he was being murdered.
“Richard,” Nicci said, drawing his attention. Her voice was little more than a weak whisper. “Are you out of your mind?”
She had to force her eyes open several times. Her brow was beaded with sweat. Richard knew that she was spent from the ordeal and needed time to rest if she was to fully recover. Still, it was profoundly heartening to see the life in her eyes again.
“What do you mean?”
“Why in the world would you paint those symbols in red all over yourself?”
Cara glanced over at him. “I like the look.”
Berdine nodded from above. “Me too. Kind of reminds me of our red leather, but without the leather.”
“It’s a good look for him,” Nyda agreed.
Even through her exhaustion, Nicci’s expression revealed that she was not amused. “Where did you ever learn to do that? Do you have any idea of the danger those symbols represent?”
Richard shrugged. “Of course. Why do you think I painted them?”
Nicci sagged back, looking too weak to argue. “Listen to me,” she said. “If I don’t…if anything…listen—you can’t tell Kahlan about the two of you.”
Richard frowned as he leaned close, trying to hear her clearly. “What are you talking about?”
“It needs a sterile field. If anything happens to me, if I don’t make it, you need to know. You can’t tell her about the two of you. If you tell Kahlan about her past with you, it won’t work.”
“What won’t work?”
“Orden. If you ever get the chance to invoke the power of Orden, it needs a sterile field to work. That means that Kahlan can’t have foreknowledge about the love between the two of you or the memories can’t be rebuilt. If you tell her, she will be forever lost to you.”
Richard nodded, not sure what she was talking about, but greatly concerned nonetheless. He feared that Nicci might be delirious from the ordeal of the collar. She wasn’t really making any sense, but he knew that it was not the time or place to get into it. He needed her fully recovered and thinking clearly, first.
“Are you listening?” she asked, her eyes sliding closed as she struggled to remain conscious.
Richard wasn’t sure if he had actually gotten the collar off in time. He knew that, at the least, she was not yet herself.
“Yes, all right. I’m listening. Sterile field. Got it. Now, just relax until we can get you to a place where you can rest. Then you can explain it all to me. You’re safe, now.”
Richard stood as Cara and Berdine helped Nicci up.
“She needs a quiet place where she can rest,” he told them.
Berdine put an arm around Nicci’s waist. “I’ll see to it, Lord Rahl.”
It had been quite a while since he’d heard himself referred to as “Lord Rahl.” The thought struck him that
Nathan might be a little resentful of suddenly being displaced as the Lord Rahl. This had not been the first time that he’d been pressed into service as the Lord Rahl, protector of the bond, only to have Richard return to reclaim the title.
Before he could really think about it, he heard an odd noise. It sounded like something crackling, possibly burning, followed by a thump. As the men around him parted to let Richard and Nicci through, he saw a man moving toward them.
At second glance, Richard wasn’t sure what he was seeing. It seemed like a soldier of the First File, but then again it didn’t. The uniform looked somehow indistinct.
General Trimack, concerned with helping Richard, extended an arm, easing some of his men back out of the way to let Richard get past. Richard, though, had paused. He was looking at the soldier not too far away making his way through the carnage.
The man didn’t have a face.
The first thought that struck him was that maybe the man had been horribly burned, that his face had been melted away. But his uniform was intact and his skin didn’t look at all burned or blistered. Instead, it was smooth and healthy-looking. He also didn’t walk as if he were hurt.
But he didn’t have a face.
Where there should have been eyes there were only slight depressions in the smooth skin, and above them the hint of a brow ridge. Where there should have been a nose there was only a slight, vertical rise, a mere indication of a nose. There was no mouth. He looked as if his face was made of clay but hadn’t yet been sculpted into features. His hands, too, were unfinished. He had no individual fingers, only thumbs. The hands looked more like flesh mittens.
It was so startling a sight that it was instantly terrifying to behold.
A soldier of the First File, helping an injured man and seeing only the semblance of a First File uniform approaching from behind and the side, straightened. He turned a little, lifting an arm out as if to ask the man in his peripheral vision to stay back. The faceless man reached up and touched the soldier’s arm.
The soldier’s face and hands blackened and cracked, as if intense heat had instantaneously crisped his flesh to a blackened crust. He never even had time to cry out before he’d been charred beyond recognition. He fell, landing with a thump—the noise Richard had heard only a moment before.
The faceless man had taken on a more distinct appearance. His nose had gained definition. He now had the indication of a slit for a mouth. It was as if he had drawn the features out of the life he had just taken.
In an instant, other soldiers of the First File stepped in front of the approaching threat. The faceless man touched them as he walked through their defensive line. Their faces, too, instantly crinkled into black, burnt folds that no longer even looked human, and they crumbled lifeless to the ground.
“Beast,” Nicci said from right beside Richard. He was helping to hold her up. Her arm was around his shoulder. “Beast,” she whispered again, a little louder, in case he hadn’t heard her the first time. “Your gift is back. The beast can find you.”
General Trimack was already leading a half-dozen men toward the new threat. That threat continued to walk toward Richard, unconcerned by the men rushing to meet it.
General Trimack bellowed with the exertion of a mighty swing as he brought his sword whistling down on the advancing threat. The man made no effort to evade the blow. The sword sliced down a good foot into the shoulder, right beside the neck, nearly cleaving the shoulder off the body.
It was a wound that would have stopped anyone. Anyone alive.
The general, his hands still on the sword, in an instant decomposed into crumpled, charred, cracked and bleeding flesh that started sloughing away. General Trimack collapsed to the floor without so much as a wince or a cry. Other than his uniform, the body was unrecognizable.
The faceless man, the general’s sword still cleaved deeply into his body, never missed a stride. His face had gained yet more definition. Now there were rudimentary eyes peering out from the depressions. Along the side of the face a hint of a scar had appeared, similar to the one General Trimack had.
The blade of the sword, where it stuck from the man, began to smoke as it turned white-hot as if freshly pulled from a blacksmith’s forge; then both ends sagged as it melted in two, falling away from where it had been embedded in the man’s chest. The point of the sword, behind the back, clattered to the floor while the hilt end fell and bounced once, landing hissing and smoking on a nearby body.
Men rushed in from every direction to stop the approaching threat.
“Get back!” Richard yelled. “All of you! Get back!”
One of the Mord-Sith slammed her Agiel into the base of the man’s neck. She instantly sizzled and smoked into a blackened, charred corpse and toppled back.
What had been only the indication of hair on the beast refined into blond strands, as hers had been only an instant before.
Everyone at last skidded to a stop and then started backing away, trying to confine the threat while at the same time staying out of reach.
Richard seized a crossbow from a nearby soldier of the First File. The weapon was already armed with one of the
deadly red-fletched arrows that Nathan had found for them.
As the man with the evolving face stepped purposefully toward him, Richard raised the bow and pulled the release.
A red-fletched bolt slammed into the center of the chest. The man—the beast—halted. Its smooth skin began to blacken and crisp just like the men it had touched. The knees folded and the beast went down in a smoking heap, looking for all the world the same as the men it had killed.
Unlike the others, though, it continued to smolder. No flames erupted, but the whole thing, including the uniform that Richard could now see was not actually a uniform of cloth, leather, and armor, but actually a part of the beast itself, melted and bubbled. The dissolving mass began to coagulate into a blackened mass. As everyone stood stunned, watching, it burned without flame, drying and cracking and curling until only ashes were left.