Severed Souls (55 page)

“Worse, it's now only a matter of days at most until this poison kills me and Kahlan. Then, you would be defenseless against a man who would want to extract revenge.

“The ancient bond the people of D'Hara have with the Lord Rahl is meant to be balanced. It does not mean you are merely in service to the Lord Rahl; it means he is also in service to you. You are his protector, but he in turn is yours. The people are the steel against steel so that he can be the magic against magic.

“I'm dying. I can't do my part to protect you.

“I admire your choice, I sincerely do, but I can't fulfill my duty not only as your leader, but to be the magic against magic for you. So you see, I can't accept your offer of service because it would be a fatal disservice to you.”

Cassia smiled, then. It was a beautiful, warm, wonderful, sad smile. Another tear ran down her cheek.

“That, Lord Rahl, was the right answer.”

With that, all three Mord-Sith went to their knees and bowed forward, putting their foreheads to the ground.

Together, with one voice, they recited the devotion, the bond, they had learned as young women, as did all D'Harans.

“Master Rahl guide us,”
they said with reverence.
“Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.”

When they finished,
Our lives are yours
echoed around the dungeon, dying out slowly.

When that echo had whispered away, they remained where they were, foreheads to the floor, and then together recited it a second time, and when the echo had again died out, they recited it a third time, as was the tradition.

Finally, when they had finished, they returned to their feet, sharing a last look among themselves. Laurin and Vale gave Cassia a nod for her to speak for them.

“Lord Rahl,” Cassia said for them all, “we would rather our lives end today, in service to you as our Lord Rahl, than to live another hundred years in service to monsters, as slaves to tyrants, as instruments of evil. To live only one day as we wish, as we choose, for our own purpose, for something good, is better than to live an entire life as slaves to hate.

“Please, Lord Rahl, we beg of you, accept our service, our bond to you. Be our Lord Rahl, even if it is only for your last day of life. It would honor us to uphold our side of the bond, even though you are unable to fulfill your part of it. To have your bond to us in your heart alone, even if you can do nothing to uphold it, is enough for us. It is everything to us.”

The three women pressed their right fists to their hearts and bowed their heads, awaiting his decision.

Richard swallowed back the lump in his throat. This was why he couldn't quit. This was what he was fighting for—for those who needed hope, who needed to live for something good, who hungered for ideals in life, instead of living in savagery and hate.

“I accept,” he said, fearing to test his voice more than that.

All three women broke into wide grins. The smiles sparkled in their wet eyes.

The one in back, Vale, immediately ran to the door and ushered the shadowed figure into the room.

As he shuffled in, Richard recognized that it was Mohler, the old scribe.

“Lord Rahl,” the man said, “I feel the same. I have worked here my entire life. I have known Hannis Arc since he was but a boy. I have watched as he grew into a man driven by bitterness and envy. Now, Ludwig Dreier has taken his place, and he is no different. Like these women, I no longer wish to stand by and watch their kind destroy everything good in order to impose their will on everyone.

“I have known these four—now three—Mord-Sith, since they have been in servitude here at the citadel. We have all been enslaved by tyrants. I told them what I knew of you, what I have learned. I told them that I decided to help you, and I asked them to join me. I, too, Lord Rahl, am in your service.”

Without further word, he shuffled forward with a big ring of keys, the right one already selected. He undid the lock on the collar first, then the manacles.

When he was free, Richard collapsed to his knees, unable to stand. As Cassia and Vale helped lift him to his feet, Mohler immediately went to Kahlan, to unlock her restraints.

Richard was there for Kahlan when she was finally free. She fell into his arms and hugged him with all her strength.

“Thank you for not giving up on any of us,” she whispered in his ear.

“Never,” he said.

 

CHAPTER

79

“Do any of you know where the others are?” Richard asked the three Mord-Sith and the scribe, Mohler. “All the soldiers of the First File? There were a lot of men.”

“And my mother,” Samantha added.

“They are all down in the dungeons,” Mohler said.

“The dungeons?” Richard asked.

“Dreier used his occult ability to render everyone unconscious—like he did to you,” Laurin said. “There are only shackles for four people in here, so the citadel guard brought you four in here and carried all the others down to the lower cells in the other dungeons.”

Richard looked around at the stone room. It was shielded and secure. “But I thought this was the dungeon.”

Cassia shook her head. “This is only the upper dungeon area of the citadel, and by far the smallest. The citadel has an extensive dungeon complex—three full floors below us, with dozens and dozens of individual rooms. Some cells are only large enough to hold one person, but most are a great deal larger than this one. They could easily house hundreds of prisoners at a time down there.”

Richard frowned at the three Mord-Sith. “Why would they hold so many people?”

Cassia pulled a finger across her throat. “To await execution.”

Vale nodded. “There is an execution room on each floor below. Drains are cut into the stone for all the blood running from the blocks where the beheadings were done. Each execution room has a number of stations with well-worn blocks.”

Cassia gestured downward. “The way it looks, they probably only used the cells to house people temporarily until they could be executed. From what I've seen of those rooms down below, it doesn't look like the dungeons and execution rooms have been in use for ages, but there is plenty of evidence that they were once in heavy use.

“The bodies were thrown in pits below the dungeons. One pit contains only skulls. The bones in others are a jumble—the bodies likely thrown in and left to rot. I have no idea how deep the layers of bones might be.”

“We have to get my mother out of there,” Samantha insisted, sounding on the verge of panic. “We have to get her out now.”

Richard put a hand on her shoulder as he thought it through. “We will, Samantha, we will.”

“She would get me out,” she insisted.

Richard looked back up at the Mord-Sith and the scribe. “I don't understand. Why are there so many prison cells here? Do any of you know? I mean, this is a pretty small city for so many dungeon cells, to say nothing of all the executions.”

“From old accounts I've seen,” Mohler said, “the citadel has long been a prison for the Dark Lands, a place to confine the most dangerous people, such as those with occult powers, until they could be executed.”

It was suddenly making sense to Richard.

“The barrier to the third kingdom was in this general area of the Dark Lands,” he said. “The people back in the time of the first Confessor, the time of the great war, knew that the seals of the barrier would begin to fail one day and that occult powers confined there would begin to seep out. They left people in Stroyza to watch for the barrier to fail completely, but more than that, they built the citadel to collect and confine anyone with dangerous occult powers that from time to time had leaked out from beyond the barrier. People like Jit.”

“Unfortunately, those powers apparently also settled into Hannis Arc and Ludwig Dreier,” Kahlan said.

Nicci gestured in frustration. “Great. So a man with those occult abilities came to be the very one running the prison meant to confine him.”

“More likely to execute him,” Kahlan said.

Richard looked back at the shackles pinned to the wall. He was beginning to get an idea. He just needed time to think it through. But there was no time. He needed to act before it was too late.

“I know that look,” Kahlan said. “What are you thinking? Get everyone out from below and do a lightning-quick attack?”

Richard's mind was filled with the flow and form of the dance with death, the way of a war wizard. He was lost in that dance he had come to know so well.

“The threat we face is not one that will be helped with soldiers. For the moment, we need to leave them down there, out of the way. We need everyone in the citadel to think we are all still locked up and under control.”

Samantha's hands fisted. “My mother is gifted. We need to get her out. She can help.”

“Samantha, calm down. I know how much you want to get her out, but I know what I'm talking about. We will get her out, I promise, but we first have to make it safe to do so. You need to trust me in this. You wouldn't want to get her out only to have her killed because we failed to recognize the full extent what we face, would you?”

“Well, no, I guess not, but—”

“But nothing. Dreier possesses occult abilities. He has already proven that he can cut any gifted person down in a heartbeat. He put all of us and the men down before any of us knew what hit us. Your mother has no chance against him. None of us do.”

A devious smile spread on Nicci's face. “I have some ideas.”

Richard was sure she did. Nicci was experienced at this sort of thing, at using her head rather than brawn. She also knew better than to try to use what they knew wouldn't work.

“We need to act with surprise, swiftness, and violence,” Richard told all of them. “Capturing Dreier is the priority.”

Kahlan's expression suddenly took an angry set. “Capture him! Richard, we can't risk capturing him! And what would be the point? The best thing to do is what you said. Surprise, swiftness, and violence. We need to kill the bastard before he has a chance to strike back. With his abilities he could kill us all. We wouldn't stand a chance of stopping him. We need to kill him, not capture him. Now we have the chance to surprise him and end the threat.”

“The threat from Dreier,” Richard said, “but what about the rest of it?”

“What about it?” Kahlan lifted her hands and let them flop down at her sides. “What can we do, Richard? We're going to be dead from Jit's poison before we have a chance to do anything else. We can at least kill Ludwig Dreier before we die. To be able to do anything else we would have to be cured.”

“Exactly.”

Richard smiled as he drew his sword. The ring of steel echoed around the stone dungeon.

Everyone looked puzzled as he turned. With a mighty swing, he struck the chain holding the collar that had been around his neck. As it cleaved the chain away at the wall, the blade sent hot fragments of steel flying through the room, some skittering along the floor, some rebounding off walls.

When the collar clattered to the floor, Richard picked it up by its short length of chain and held it up before the others. “This is a collar meant to contain the powers of the gifted.”

“Dreier has occult powers,” Kahlan pointed out. “Those are even more powerful than his gifted abilities.”

A grin spread on Nicci's face. “But this place was made specifically to confine those with occult powers, not merely the gifted.”

“Right,” Richard said. “With this, we can capture Ludwig Dreier and keep him from using his power against us.”

Kahlan folded her arms, interested, but not yet convinced. “Why? It would be easier to kill him. What's the point of going to the trouble of capturing him?”

“What kind of poison do we have in us?” he asked her.

Kahlan shrugged. “The call of death, from Jit.”

“Which is…?” Richard prompted.

Her eyes widened with understanding. “Caused by an occult power.”

“That's right. Jit had occult powers. That's what is infecting us.”

Nicci was smiling. “And Ludwig Dreier has occult powers. So, if we can capture him alive and hold him in that collar, maybe we can find out if there is a way to cure you two of that occult poison without a containment field.”

“It's our only chance,” Richard said. “We have to try.”

“Even if you somehow get him in the collar,” Kahlan said, “how are you going to get him to cooperate?”

Cassia leaned in as she smiled in the chilling way that only Mord-Sith could smile. “You leave that part to us, Mother Confessor. We are Lord Rahl's Mord-Sith now. We will get Dreier to cooperate.”

“With this sickness in me, my bond doesn't work to power your Agiel,” Richard reminded them.

“No,” she agreed, the smile still in place, “but Dreier said that his occult abilities power our Agiel now, and the bond that powers them can't be broken as long as he's alive.”

“So,” Vale said, “we can use his own ability against him.”

“We're going to do whatever it takes to protect Lord Rahl's life,” Laurin added. “That is what Mord-Sith do. We will get him to talk. If there is a cure, he will tell us what he knows.”

Kahlan looked at the determination in their eyes. “Just leave him alive when you're done so I can kill him.”

“You've got it, Mother Confessor,” Laurin said.

“He's yours to kill,” Cassia agreed.

“But until then, he is ours,” Vale said with a gleam of menace in her eyes.

“Do any of you know where he sleeps?” Richard asked the three Mord-Sith.

They all shared a look.

“Oh yes, we know,” Cassia said. “It's up on the third floor.”