“Heart hounds,” he said with a grin.
Zedd seemed bored. Kahlan was not amused. Richard was astounded. Since he seemed to have an audience of only one. Chase grabbed a fistful of Richard’s shirt and dragged him off. “Come on, I’ll show you what it’s like.” Chase locked his right arm together with Richard’s left as they proceeded, cautioning Richard, “Go slow, I’ll let you know when we’ve gone far enough. Keep hold of my arm.” They walked ahead slowly.
Green light began. With each step it became more intense, but it was different from when Richard had watched Chase go in by himself. Then, the light had been to Chase’s sides and above him, now it was all about. There was a buzzing sound, like a thousand bumblebees. With each step the sound became deeper, but not louder. The green light became deeper, too, and the surrounding wood darker, as if night were falling. Then the sheet of green was in front of them, materializing out of nothing, with the green glow everywhere else. Richard could hardly see the woods anymore; he looked back and couldn’t see Zedd or Kahlan at all.
“Easy now,” Chase warned. They pushed against the green sheet as they stepped slowly ahead. Richard could feel the pressure of it against his body.
Then everything else blacked out, as if he were in a cave at night, with a green glow around Chase and himself. Richard held Chase’s arm tighter. The buzzing felt like it was vibrating his chest.
With the next step the green sheet of the wall changed suddenly. “Far enough,” Chase said, his voice echoing. The wall had become darkly transparent, as if Richard were looking into a deep pond in the dark woods. Chase stood still, watching him.
There were forms on the other side.
Inky black shapes wavered in the gloom on the other side of the wall, specters floating in the deep.
The dead in their lair.
Something closer and faster moved nearer to them. “The hounds,” Chase said.
Richard felt an odd sensation of longing. Longing for the blackness. The humming wasn’t a sound, he realized, it was voices.
Voices that murmured his name.
Thousands of distant voices called out to him. The black shapes were gathering, calling to him, holding their arms out to him.
He felt a sudden, unexpected stab of loneliness, felt the solitude of his life, of all life. Why did he need the pain when they were waiting, waiting to welcome him? Never alone again. The black shapes drifted closer in the gloom, calling to him, and he began to see their faces. It was as if he were looking through murky water. They came closer. He longed to step through. To be there with them.
And then he saw his father.
Richard’s heart pounded. His father called out to him mournfully in a long sorrowful cry. His arms thrust out, trying desperately to clutch for his son. He was just beyond the wall. Richard’s heart felt as if it were going to rip with yearning. It had been so long since he had seen his father. He wailed for him, hungered to touch him. He wouldn’t have to be afraid ever again. He had only to reach his father. Then he would be safe.
Safe. Forever.
Richard tried to reach out to his father, tried to go to him, tried to step through the wall. Something was holding his arm. Irritated, he pulled harder. Someone held him from his father. He screamed for whoever held him to let go. His voice sounded hollow, empty.
Then he was being pulled away from his father.
His anger roared to life. Someone was trying to drag him back by his arm. In a rage he grabbed his sword. A big hand clamped over his with an iron grip. Screaming in unrestrained fury, he struggled mightily to free the sword, but the big hands held tight, dragging him, stumbling, from his father. Richard struggled, but was hauled away.
The green wall came up suddenly in place of the darkness as he was pulled back. Chase was dragging him away from it, through the green light. The world returned with a sickening jolt. The dry, dead bog returned.
Suddenly aware, Richard was appalled at what he had almost done. Chase released his sword hand. Shaking, Richard put it on the big man’s shoulder for
support, struggling to catch his breath as they stepped out of the green light. Relief washed over him.
Chase leaned over a little, searching his eyes. “All right?”
Richard nodded, too overwhelmed to speak. The sight of his father had brought back the devastating grief. He had to concentrate just to breathe, to stand. His throat hurt. He realized he had been choking, but hadn’t been aware of it at the time.
Terror raced through Richard’s mind as he realized how close he had come to stepping through the wall, to death. He had been totally unprepared for what had happened. If Chase hadn’t been there holding on to him, he would be dead now. He had tried to give in to the underworld. He felt as if he didn’t know himself. How could he have wanted to give himself over to it? Was he that weak? That frail?
Richard’s head swirled with pain. He couldn’t clear the vision of his father’s face from his mind, the way his father longed for him, called to him, so desperate. He ached to be with him. It would have been so easy. The image haunted his mind, refusing to let go. He didn’t want to let it go; he wanted to go back. He could feel the pull, even as he resisted.
Kahlan was there, waiting for them, at the edge of the green light as they emerged. She swept her arm protectively around his waist and tugged him away from Chase. With her other hand she grabbed hold of his jaw, turning his head, making him look at her.
“Richard. Listen to me. Think of something else. Concentrate. You have to think of something else. I want you to remember every intersection on every trail in the Hartland. Can you do that for me? Please? Do it now. Remember every one for me.”
He nodded, and started to remember the trails.
Kahlan turned to Chase in a fury, slapping him across his face as hard as she could.
“You bastard!” she screamed. “Why would you do that to him!” Throwing all her weight into it, she slapped him again, her hair tossing across her face. Chase didn’t try to stop her. “You did it on purpose! How could you do that!” She swung at him a third time, but this time, he grabbed her wrist in midswing.
“Do you want me to tell you or do you wish to go on hitting me?”
She jerked her hand away, glaring at him, her chest heaving. Some of her hair was stuck sideways across her face.
“Going through Kings’ Port is dangerous. It isn’t straight through; it twists and turns. Some places it’s very narrow, the two walls of the boundary almost touching. One step either way and you’re gone. You’ve been through the boundary; so has Zedd. You both understand. You can’t see it until you start in, otherwise you don’t know where it is. I only know because I’ve spent my life out here. It’s even more dangerous now because it’s failing, even easier to walk through it. When you get in the pass, if something started chasing you, Richard could run into the underworld without even knowing what it was.”
“That’s no excuse! You could have warned him!”
“I’ve never had a child yet who had the proper respect for fire until they put their hand in it once. No amount of telling is worth doing it once. If Richard didn’t understand what it was like before he went into Kings’ Port, he wouldn’t come out
the other side. Yes, I took him in there on purpose. To show him. To keep him alive.”
“You could have told him!”
Chase shook his head. “No. He had to see it.”
“Enough!” Richard said, his head clear at last. They all turned to him. “A day has yet to go by when one of you three doesn’t scare the wits out of me. But I know you all have my best interests at heart. Right now we have more important things to worry about. Chase, how do you know the boundary is failing? What’s different?”
“The wall is breaking down. Before, you couldn’t see through the green into the darkness. You couldn’t see anything on the other side.”
“Chase is right,” Zedd offered, “I could see it from here.”
“How long until it fails?” Richard asked the wizard.
Zedd shrugged. “It’s hard to tell.”
“Then guess!” Richard shot back. “Give me some kind of idea. Your best guess.”
“It will last at least two weeks. But not more than six or seven.”
Richard thought a minute. “Can you use your magic to strengthen it?”
“I don’t have that kind of power.”
“Chase, do you think Rahl knows about Kings’ Port?”
“How should I know?”
“Well, has anyone come through the pass?”
Chase thought about the question. “Not that I know of.”
“I doubt it,” Zedd added. “Rahl can travel the underworld; he doesn’t need the pass. He’s bringing the boundary down; I don’t think he cares about a little pass.”
“Caring is different from knowing,” Richard said. “I don’t think we should be standing here, and I’m worried he might know where we’re going.”
Kahlan pulled the hair off her face. “What do you mean?”
Richard gave her a sympathetic look. “Do you think it was your mother and sister you saw when you were in there?”
“I thought it was. Do you think otherwise?”
“I don’t think that was my father.” He looked to the wizard. “What do you think?”
“It’s impossible to say. No one really knows all that much about the underworld.”
“Darken Rahl knows about it,” Richard said bitterly. “I don’t think my father would want me in that manner. But I know Rahl would, so despite what my eyes tell me, it’s more likely that it was Darken Rahl’s disciples trying to take me. You said we couldn’t go through the boundary because they were waiting for us to do so, waiting to get us. I think that was what I saw, his followers in the underworld. And they know right where I touched the wall. If I’m right that means Rahl will soon know where we are. I don’t want to be here to find out if I’m right.”
“Richard is right,” Chase said. “And we have to get to Skow Swamp before nightfall, before the heart hounds come out. It’s the only safe place between here and Southaven. We’ll reach Southaven before tomorrow night and will be safe from
the hounds there. The next day we will go see a friend of mine, Adie, the bone woman. She lives near the pass. We need her help to get through. But tonight, our only chance is the swamp.”
Richard was about to ask what a bone woman was, and why they needed her help to cross the boundary, when a dark, shadowy form suddenly whipped out of the air, striking Chase so hard it threw him across several downed trees. With shocking speed the black form wrapped around Kahlan’s legs, whiplike, pulling her feet from under her. She screamed Richard’s name as he dove, grabbing for her. They locked their hands around each other’s wrists. Both were dragged across the ground, toward the boundary.
Zedd’s fingers threw fire over their heads. It shrieked past and vanished. Another black appendage struck out at the wizard with lightning speed, knocking the old man through the air. Richard hooked a foot around a branch on a log. Rotten, it tore from the stump. He twisted his body around, trying to dig his heels into the ground. His boots slid across the wet bog weed. He jammed his heels into the earth, but wasn’t strong enough to hold the two of them from being dragged across the ground. He needed his hands free.
“Put your arms around my waist!” he yelled.
Kahlan lunged, throwing her arms around him, holding tight. The sinuous black thing wrapped around her legs undulated, getting a stronger grip on her. She screamed as it squeezed. Richard yanked the sword free, filling the air with its ringing.
The green light began to glow around them as they were dragged in.
Anger flooded through him. Richard’s worst fear was coming to pass; something was trying to take Kahlan. The green light brightened. Being hauled across the ground, he couldn’t reach the thing that pulled them. Kahlan held him hard by the waist; her legs were too far away, and the thing that held her legs was farther still.
“Kahlan, let go of me!”
She was too terrified to do it. She clutched him tightly, desperately, panting in pain. The green sheet came up as they were dragged in. The buzzing was loud in his ears.
“Let go!” he yelled again.
He tried to pry her hands from his waist. The trees of the bog started to fade into darkness. Richard could feel the pressure of the wall. He couldn’t believe how strongly she held him. On his back, sliding across the ground, he tried to reach behind himself to pull her wrists away from him, but could not. Their only chance was for him to get up.
“Kahlan! You have to let go or we’re dead! I won’t let them get you! Trust me! Let go!” He didn’t know if he was telling her the truth, but he was sure it was their only chance.
Her head pressed against his stomach as she clutched his body. Kahlan looked up at him, her face contorting in pain as the black thing squeezed. She screamed, then let go.
In a blink Richard was on his feet. As he jumped up, the dark wall materialized abruptly in front of him. His father reached out. He unleashed his rage, swinging
the sword with every fiber of violence he possessed. The blade swept through the barrier, through the thing he knew wasn’t his father. The dark shape wailed, exploding into a cloud of nothingness.
Kahlan’s feet were at the wall, the dark thing enfolded tightly around her legs, compressing and pulling. He brought the sword up. Murderous need surged through him.
“Richard, no! It’s my sister!”
He knew it wasn’t, just as it wasn’t his father. He gave himself over completely to the hot need and brought the sword down as hard as he could. Again it swept through the wall, slashed through the repulsive thing that held Kahlan. There was a confusion of flashes, unearthly wailing and keening. Kahlan’s legs were free. She lay sprawled on her stomach.
Without looking to see what else was happening, Richard pushed his arm under her waist and lifted her in a single motion, scooping her off the ground. He held her tight against himself and held the sword toward the wall as he retreated from the boundary. Backing away steadily, he watched for any movement, any aggression. They left the green light.
He kept going until they were well clear, beyond the horses. When he stopped at last and released her, Kahlan turned and threw her arms around him, shaking. He had to struggle to restrain the rage that urged him to go back in and attack. He knew he would have to put the sword away to quell the anger, the need, but he didn’t dare to.