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«Dear spirits, don't do this to her,» he whispered. «Please,» he added with a choking sob, «don't take her.»
He looked over at Nicci. «She wanted to die as a Mord-Sith, fighting for our cause, not in bed.»
Nicci offered the smallest of smiles. «She had her wish.»
The words, making it sound as if Cara was already dead, hit him like a blow. He couldn't allow this to happen. He just couldn't. Kahlan was gone, and now this. He just couldn't let it happen.
He cupped a hand to Cara's icy face. It felt like touching the dead. Richard swallowed back the tears.
«Nicci, you're a sorceress. You saved me when I was near death. No one else but you would have ever been able to come up with a solution. No one but you could have saved me. Isn't there anything at all that you can think of to do for Cara?»
Nicci slipped forward off the chair to kneel beside him. She took up his hand and held it to her lips. He felt a tear fall onto the back of the hand she so tenderly held, as if she were a humble subject beseeching her king's forgiveness.
«I'm so sorry, Richard, but there isn't. I hope you know that I would do anything it took if I could save her, but I can't. This is beyond my ability. A time comes when we all have to die. Her time has come and I can't change it.»
Richard blinked at the watery sight of the death scene, the room barely lit by the weak light of two small flames. The bed holding Cara seemed lo float by itself in that light, with darkness waiting all around her.
He nodded. «Nicci, please, could you leave me alone with her? I want to be alone with her when the times comes that — It's nothing against you. It's just that I think I should be alone with her.»
«I understand, Richard.» Nicci's fingers touched his back as she stood and then, as if reluctant to break that contact with the living, trailed along his shoulder as she moved past. «I'll be close by if you need me,» she said as her living touch ended.
The door softly shut behind her, leaving the room in silence. Even though the heavy drapes were closed over the window, Richard could hear the ceaseless chorus of the cicadas outside.
He could no longer hold back the tears. He laid his head on Cara's middle as he sobbed, clutching her limp hand.
«Cara, I'm so sorry. It's my fault. It was after me, not you. I'm so sorry. Please, Cara, don't leave me. I need you so much.»
Cara was the only one who followed him because she believed in him. She might have agreed with Nicci that he was dreaming up Kahlan, but she still believed in him. With Cara, that wasn't a contradiction. More and more lately, it seemed that her faith in him was all that was holding him together and keeping him focused on what he had to do. There were frightening moments when he no longer knew if he believed in himself. It was so hard to face an entire world that thought he was delusional. It was so hard to do what he believed in when almost no one believed in him. But Cara believed in him even if she didn't believe in Kahlan's existence. There was something unique about that sentiment, something unlike even Nicci or Victor's respect for him.
He held Cara's face in both hands as he kissed her forehead.
He hoped she wasn't suffering. He hoped it was a peaceful end to a life I hat had been anything but peaceful.
She was so pale, her breathing so shallow.
Her flesh felt as cold as death.
Hating that she was so cold, Richard pulled the bedcover aside as he leaned over and slipped his arms around her, hoping that his warmth would help her.
«Take my warmth,» he whispered in her ear. «Take all you need. Please, Cara, take warmth from me.»
Lying there holding her, Richard descended into a fog of agony. He knew how much this woman had suffered. He knew what her life had been like, he knew how much she had been hurt, he had endured some of the things she had endured under the mad rule of his father, Darken Rahl. He had suffered some of the same pain and hopelessness. Perhaps more than anyone else, he could truly empathize with her. He knew how strangers had taken her into a world of pain and madness. Richard knew because he had been there, too. He had so wanted to bring her back from that dark and terrible place.
«Take my warmth, Cara. I'm here for you.»
He opened himself to her, opened his need to her, opened himself to her need.
He clutched her tightly in his arms as he wept against her shoulder. He almost felt that if he were to hold her tight enough, she couldn't slip away into death.
Richard could feel as he held her in his arms that she was still alive and I he couldn't bear for that to end. He wished so much that Nicci could have' done something. If anyone deserved to be healed, it was Cara. At that moment, more than anything, he wanted her to be healed.
Richard opened himself, his very soul, to that purpose.
He released himself into his empathy for this woman who had given him so much. More than once she had risked her life to follow his orders. She had often risked her life for him in open defiance of his orders. She had followed him across the world. Countless times she had placed herself between danger and his and Kahlan's lives. Cara deserved life, deserved all the goodness in life. He wanted nothing but to make her whole again. He gave all of himself over to that desire. He held back nothing in his focused need to have Cara stay among the living.
To that end, to that desperate desire, he consciously sought the life within her as he descended into the swirling current of her agony. As fast as that thought, he found his mind with hers, with her agonizing pain. He held her tight in his arms as he wept with her desolate suffering.
He gritted his teeth, held his breath, and pulled her pain into himself. He wanted nothing more than to draw that pain away from her. He spared nothing to protect himself from the onslaught that suddenly inundated him. He felt everything she felt. He suffered everything she suffered. He pressed his open mouth against her shoulder, muffling his scream as the pain lanced through him.
They were in an empty, dark, and hopeless place — a lifeless place.
He shook with her suffering as he lifted some of her burden. She held tight to the pain, loath to release it, especially to him. But as weak as she was, he was able lo draw it anyway, and then he drew yet more.
Lifting and uncovering the layers of suffering, he felt the icy touch of death within her.
The raw fear at such an encounter was as arresting as anything he had ever confronted. Cara was saturated in that dark and icy sensation. He shook with the suffering he shared with her, with the dread they together fell. His mind twisted with the wrenching pain until it was a terrible and seemingly insurmountable struggle just to maintain his own will to go on.
Richard was swept into a coursing, cold current of hopeless misery that consumed him. It seemed more than he could bear, and yet he endured it and took on more. He wanted her to take on his strength, his living warmth. But to do that, he would first have to survive pulling that dark poison into himself while at the same time giving over to her his strength.
Time lost all meaning. The pain itself was the embodiment of forever.
«Death will come often, offering to take you — wanting to take you,» he whispered against her ear. «Don't accept the offer, Cara. Stay. Don't accept death.»
I want to die.
That single thought came spiraling up through the agonizing desolation. It shocked and terrified him. What if trying to hold on to life was more than she could endure? What if it was more than he could endure? What if he was asking more of her than she could abide? — more than he had had a right to ask?
«Cara,» he whispered into her ear, «I need you to live. Please, I need you to live.»
I can't.
«Cara, you are not alone. I'm here with you. Hold on. For me, hold on and let me help you.»
Please, let me go. Let me die. I'm begging you, if you care for me, then leave me — let me die.
She began to slip away. He clutched her tighter. He pulled more of her suffering into himself. Her inner self wailed in agony as she fought him.
«Cara, please»-he gasped against the torrent of pain flooding through him «let me help you. Please don't leave me.»
I don't want lo live. I have failed you. I should have saved you when Nicci came lo capture you. I know that now —you made me see it. I would die for you, but I failed in my duty, in my promises to myself. There is no reason for me to live. I am not worthy to be your protector. Please, let me go.
Richard was stunned to grasp the despair in her longing, but more than that, he was horrified by it.
He gathered that pain, too, and lifted it from her. He took it even as she tried to hold on to it, to slip away from him.
«Cara, I love you. Please don't leave me. I need you.»
He fought to draw more of her agony into himself. He overpowered her resistance and took more yet. She was unable to stop him. He lifted the ashen robes of death dragging her down. Richard held her tight in his arms as he opened his heart, his need, his soul.
She wailed in heartbreak. He understood the crushing loneliness.
«I'm with you, Cara. You aren't alone.»
Richard soothed her even as he struggled to endure the stunning agony of the evil that had touched her. It was not simply the pain of it, but the bleak horror of it that was killing her, and now that same cold desolation was slowly crushing him-and at the same time her blinding suffering blocked his healing power from flowing into her.
He suddenly felt as if he had swum out to save a drowning person and now they were both caught up in the same savage torrent and they were both drowning together in the black waters of death.
If he was to have a chance-if she was-he first had to lift enough of her suffering. He had to hold the weight of it for her. He pulled the pain onward, heedless of it, welcoming it, drawing it with all his might.
When he felt that full weight of misery and anguish gathered into the core of himself, he had to struggle mightily to hold on to his own life at the same time as he let flow his power, his healing strength, his healing heart. Richard had never been taught how to heal, how to direct his power, he could only let the warmth of it flow into her.
I don't want to live. I have failed you. Please, let me die.
«Why do you want to leave me? Why?
Because only in that way can I serve you, because then you can have another who will not fail you.
«Cara, that isn't true. Something is wrong. Something neither of us understands.» Through the pain, Richard fought to get the words out. «Yon didn't fail me. You have to believe me. You must believe in me. That is what I need more then anything-for you to be with me and believe in me. It is you I need, not your service. Please, I need you. I need you to live. That is the service-your life makes mine better.»
He fought with all his might to hold on-to hold Cara with him-but the weight of the darkness within seemed bottomless. As the barriers of his restraint collapsed, he felt as if he were plunging into a molten void, spiraling ever downward into that dark shadow that had come through the wall for him. He saw flashes of it as she had seen it, saw the heart-Mopping terror of it crashing in on her.
That was the core of her dread, that vile thing, that death incarnate, coming for him, right through her. This was not the gentle dissolution of consciousness into the void of nonexistence. This was every nightmare come to life, come to rip the life out of the living. This was dark death descending upon her, all alone and defenseless, that merciless reaper of souls come to rip hers out while she screamed her life away.
As she'd stood before it, blocking its way, she had taken its deadly touch.
He understood, then, that Cara felt she had failed him before, with Nicci, and this time she had been determined to die to prove her oath. Madness still dwelt within her.
She believed that death falling in upon her would be her redemption in his eyes and so she refused to shrink before it.
She wanted to die for him to prove herself to him.
As it had come through the wall and through her room, Cara had tried to steal the power from death itself.
Richard felt that torturous touch envelope him in its all-consuming agony. It was a touch so cold it began to freeze his heart.
The world began slipping away from him, as it had begun to slip away from her.
He was lost in the crushing pain of that deadly touch.
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
He looked over at Nicci. «She wanted to die as a Mord-Sith, fighting for our cause, not in bed.»
Nicci offered the smallest of smiles. «She had her wish.»
The words, making it sound as if Cara was already dead, hit him like a blow. He couldn't allow this to happen. He just couldn't. Kahlan was gone, and now this. He just couldn't let it happen.
He cupped a hand to Cara's icy face. It felt like touching the dead. Richard swallowed back the tears.
«Nicci, you're a sorceress. You saved me when I was near death. No one else but you would have ever been able to come up with a solution. No one but you could have saved me. Isn't there anything at all that you can think of to do for Cara?»
Nicci slipped forward off the chair to kneel beside him. She took up his hand and held it to her lips. He felt a tear fall onto the back of the hand she so tenderly held, as if she were a humble subject beseeching her king's forgiveness.
«I'm so sorry, Richard, but there isn't. I hope you know that I would do anything it took if I could save her, but I can't. This is beyond my ability. A time comes when we all have to die. Her time has come and I can't change it.»
Richard blinked at the watery sight of the death scene, the room barely lit by the weak light of two small flames. The bed holding Cara seemed lo float by itself in that light, with darkness waiting all around her.
He nodded. «Nicci, please, could you leave me alone with her? I want to be alone with her when the times comes that — It's nothing against you. It's just that I think I should be alone with her.»
«I understand, Richard.» Nicci's fingers touched his back as she stood and then, as if reluctant to break that contact with the living, trailed along his shoulder as she moved past. «I'll be close by if you need me,» she said as her living touch ended.
The door softly shut behind her, leaving the room in silence. Even though the heavy drapes were closed over the window, Richard could hear the ceaseless chorus of the cicadas outside.
He could no longer hold back the tears. He laid his head on Cara's middle as he sobbed, clutching her limp hand.
«Cara, I'm so sorry. It's my fault. It was after me, not you. I'm so sorry. Please, Cara, don't leave me. I need you so much.»
Cara was the only one who followed him because she believed in him. She might have agreed with Nicci that he was dreaming up Kahlan, but she still believed in him. With Cara, that wasn't a contradiction. More and more lately, it seemed that her faith in him was all that was holding him together and keeping him focused on what he had to do. There were frightening moments when he no longer knew if he believed in himself. It was so hard to face an entire world that thought he was delusional. It was so hard to do what he believed in when almost no one believed in him. But Cara believed in him even if she didn't believe in Kahlan's existence. There was something unique about that sentiment, something unlike even Nicci or Victor's respect for him.
He held Cara's face in both hands as he kissed her forehead.
He hoped she wasn't suffering. He hoped it was a peaceful end to a life I hat had been anything but peaceful.
She was so pale, her breathing so shallow.
Her flesh felt as cold as death.
Hating that she was so cold, Richard pulled the bedcover aside as he leaned over and slipped his arms around her, hoping that his warmth would help her.
«Take my warmth,» he whispered in her ear. «Take all you need. Please, Cara, take warmth from me.»
Lying there holding her, Richard descended into a fog of agony. He knew how much this woman had suffered. He knew what her life had been like, he knew how much she had been hurt, he had endured some of the things she had endured under the mad rule of his father, Darken Rahl. He had suffered some of the same pain and hopelessness. Perhaps more than anyone else, he could truly empathize with her. He knew how strangers had taken her into a world of pain and madness. Richard knew because he had been there, too. He had so wanted to bring her back from that dark and terrible place.
«Take my warmth, Cara. I'm here for you.»
He opened himself to her, opened his need to her, opened himself to her need.
He clutched her tightly in his arms as he wept against her shoulder. He almost felt that if he were to hold her tight enough, she couldn't slip away into death.
Richard could feel as he held her in his arms that she was still alive and I he couldn't bear for that to end. He wished so much that Nicci could have' done something. If anyone deserved to be healed, it was Cara. At that moment, more than anything, he wanted her to be healed.
Richard opened himself, his very soul, to that purpose.
He released himself into his empathy for this woman who had given him so much. More than once she had risked her life to follow his orders. She had often risked her life for him in open defiance of his orders. She had followed him across the world. Countless times she had placed herself between danger and his and Kahlan's lives. Cara deserved life, deserved all the goodness in life. He wanted nothing but to make her whole again. He gave all of himself over to that desire. He held back nothing in his focused need to have Cara stay among the living.
To that end, to that desperate desire, he consciously sought the life within her as he descended into the swirling current of her agony. As fast as that thought, he found his mind with hers, with her agonizing pain. He held her tight in his arms as he wept with her desolate suffering.
He gritted his teeth, held his breath, and pulled her pain into himself. He wanted nothing more than to draw that pain away from her. He spared nothing to protect himself from the onslaught that suddenly inundated him. He felt everything she felt. He suffered everything she suffered. He pressed his open mouth against her shoulder, muffling his scream as the pain lanced through him.
They were in an empty, dark, and hopeless place — a lifeless place.
He shook with her suffering as he lifted some of her burden. She held tight to the pain, loath to release it, especially to him. But as weak as she was, he was able lo draw it anyway, and then he drew yet more.
Lifting and uncovering the layers of suffering, he felt the icy touch of death within her.
The raw fear at such an encounter was as arresting as anything he had ever confronted. Cara was saturated in that dark and icy sensation. He shook with the suffering he shared with her, with the dread they together fell. His mind twisted with the wrenching pain until it was a terrible and seemingly insurmountable struggle just to maintain his own will to go on.
Richard was swept into a coursing, cold current of hopeless misery that consumed him. It seemed more than he could bear, and yet he endured it and took on more. He wanted her to take on his strength, his living warmth. But to do that, he would first have to survive pulling that dark poison into himself while at the same time giving over to her his strength.
Time lost all meaning. The pain itself was the embodiment of forever.
«Death will come often, offering to take you — wanting to take you,» he whispered against her ear. «Don't accept the offer, Cara. Stay. Don't accept death.»
I want to die.
That single thought came spiraling up through the agonizing desolation. It shocked and terrified him. What if trying to hold on to life was more than she could endure? What if it was more than he could endure? What if he was asking more of her than she could abide? — more than he had had a right to ask?
«Cara,» he whispered into her ear, «I need you to live. Please, I need you to live.»
I can't.
«Cara, you are not alone. I'm here with you. Hold on. For me, hold on and let me help you.»
Please, let me go. Let me die. I'm begging you, if you care for me, then leave me — let me die.
She began to slip away. He clutched her tighter. He pulled more of her suffering into himself. Her inner self wailed in agony as she fought him.
«Cara, please»-he gasped against the torrent of pain flooding through him «let me help you. Please don't leave me.»
I don't want lo live. I have failed you. I should have saved you when Nicci came lo capture you. I know that now —you made me see it. I would die for you, but I failed in my duty, in my promises to myself. There is no reason for me to live. I am not worthy to be your protector. Please, let me go.
Richard was stunned to grasp the despair in her longing, but more than that, he was horrified by it.
He gathered that pain, too, and lifted it from her. He took it even as she tried to hold on to it, to slip away from him.
«Cara, I love you. Please don't leave me. I need you.»
He fought to draw more of her agony into himself. He overpowered her resistance and took more yet. She was unable to stop him. He lifted the ashen robes of death dragging her down. Richard held her tight in his arms as he opened his heart, his need, his soul.
She wailed in heartbreak. He understood the crushing loneliness.
«I'm with you, Cara. You aren't alone.»
Richard soothed her even as he struggled to endure the stunning agony of the evil that had touched her. It was not simply the pain of it, but the bleak horror of it that was killing her, and now that same cold desolation was slowly crushing him-and at the same time her blinding suffering blocked his healing power from flowing into her.
He suddenly felt as if he had swum out to save a drowning person and now they were both caught up in the same savage torrent and they were both drowning together in the black waters of death.
If he was to have a chance-if she was-he first had to lift enough of her suffering. He had to hold the weight of it for her. He pulled the pain onward, heedless of it, welcoming it, drawing it with all his might.
When he felt that full weight of misery and anguish gathered into the core of himself, he had to struggle mightily to hold on to his own life at the same time as he let flow his power, his healing strength, his healing heart. Richard had never been taught how to heal, how to direct his power, he could only let the warmth of it flow into her.
I don't want to live. I have failed you. Please, let me die.
«Why do you want to leave me? Why?
Because only in that way can I serve you, because then you can have another who will not fail you.
«Cara, that isn't true. Something is wrong. Something neither of us understands.» Through the pain, Richard fought to get the words out. «Yon didn't fail me. You have to believe me. You must believe in me. That is what I need more then anything-for you to be with me and believe in me. It is you I need, not your service. Please, I need you. I need you to live. That is the service-your life makes mine better.»
He fought with all his might to hold on-to hold Cara with him-but the weight of the darkness within seemed bottomless. As the barriers of his restraint collapsed, he felt as if he were plunging into a molten void, spiraling ever downward into that dark shadow that had come through the wall for him. He saw flashes of it as she had seen it, saw the heart-Mopping terror of it crashing in on her.
That was the core of her dread, that vile thing, that death incarnate, coming for him, right through her. This was not the gentle dissolution of consciousness into the void of nonexistence. This was every nightmare come to life, come to rip the life out of the living. This was dark death descending upon her, all alone and defenseless, that merciless reaper of souls come to rip hers out while she screamed her life away.
As she'd stood before it, blocking its way, she had taken its deadly touch.
He understood, then, that Cara felt she had failed him before, with Nicci, and this time she had been determined to die to prove her oath. Madness still dwelt within her.
She believed that death falling in upon her would be her redemption in his eyes and so she refused to shrink before it.
She wanted to die for him to prove herself to him.
As it had come through the wall and through her room, Cara had tried to steal the power from death itself.
Richard felt that torturous touch envelope him in its all-consuming agony. It was a touch so cold it began to freeze his heart.
The world began slipping away from him, as it had begun to slip away from her.
He was lost in the crushing pain of that deadly touch.
CHAPTER 19
It felt to Richard as if he were trapped beneath the ice in the swill, raven waters of a frozen river. The shadow of panic swirled ever closer around him.
He was exhausted and didn't have any reserve of strength left.
As the specter of failure loomed, and the full realization of what such a failure would mean came to him, he rallied his will and exerted greater effort to fight his way toward the remote light of consciousness. Even though he was aware that he had managed to come partially awake, he was still in some distant, deep place and having difficulty completing the journey. He struggled to rise up, struggled for the life above, but couldn't break through.
Even as Richard tried to press himself harder, it seemed too difficult, too far. For the first time, he considered the peace of surrender — truly considered it, as had she before it had dragged her under.
The deadly fangs of failure hovered closer.
Driven by the fright of the full realization of everything that such a defeat would mean, he drew together his strength, focused his will, and with desperate passion reached toward the world of life.
With a gasp, his eyes opened.
The pain had been crushing. He felt dizzy and sick from the encounter with such malevolence. He still trembled with the power of it. After such raw inner violence, he feared that every hammer beat of his heart might be the last. The slick touch of depravity had bequeathed him a repugnant memory of the gagging stench of rotting corpses, making it nearly impossible to draw the full breath he needed.
He had reached into Cara's soul and he had felt an alien evil lurking there, within her, sucking the life from her, pulling her into the dark eternity of death. It had been a debilitating dread beyond anything he had ever felt before, beyond the mere fear of the black abyss of eternity.
It had been the grinning, linked vow of unimaginable terrors that were coming for him.
At first it had seemed that he had touched the icy face of death itself, but he now knew that he hadn't. Despite his revulsion, he knew that it was something other than simply death.
Death was merely a part of its poisonous architecture.
Death was inanimate. This was not.
He hurt so much that he was unsure at that moment if he would have the strength to ever stand again, the strength required to live. His bones ached. The marrow of his bones ached. He couldn't seem to stop trembling. Yet the pain was more than mere physical agony; it was an abhorrent misery that had seeped through his soul and touched every aspect of his existence.
The quiet room at last began to float into focus around him. The lamps still held back the veil of darkness. Beyond the heavy drapes the cicadas still sang their song of life.
Lying on the bed, still embracing Cara protectively in his arms, Richard was at last able to draw the full breath he so desperately needed. As he did, he relished the fragrance of her hair, savored the scent of the warm, moist skin along the curve of her neck, and in so doing the agony began to recede.
He felt Cara's arms tightly embracing him. Downy soft hair behind her ear caressed the side of his face.
«Cara?» he whispered.
She reached up and ran a hand tenderly down the back of his head as she unashamedly held him against her. «Shh,» she soothed in his ear. «It's all right.»
He was having trouble making sense of things.
He was somewhat disoriented to find himself holding Cara in his arms, to find her holding him so tenderly in hers, to realize they were locked in such an intimate embrace. He could feel the entire length of her pressed against him. But then, nothing could be more intimate than what they had shared in that dark place as they together faced the evil that had taken her.
He ran his tongue across his cracked lips and tasted salty tears.
«Cara.»
She nodded against the side of his face. «Shh,» she soothed again. «It's all right. I'm with you. I won't leave you.»
He drew away just enough to look into her eyes. They were blue and clear, revealing a depth he had never seen before. She studied his face with a kind of caring, knowing sympathy.
At that moment, he clearly saw in her eyes that this was Cara and no more. In that moment, he saw that the appellation of Mord-Sith had been stripped away down to her soul. In that moment, it was Cara, the woman, the individual, and nothing else.
It was as revealing and profound a view of her as he had ever had. It was startlingly beautiful.
«You are a very rare person, Richard Rahl.»
The soft breath of her words against his face soothed some of the lingering pain as seductively as did her arms, as did her eyes, as did her words, as did the living, breathing warmth of her.
Even so, the agony he had lifted from her still coursed through him, seeking to pull him back toward darkness and death. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he fought it with his love of life, and with his joy that Cara was alive.
«I am a wizard,» he whispered back.
She stared up into his eyes as she slowly shook her head in wonder.
«There has never been a Lord Rahl like you before. I swear, there never has.»
With her arms around his neck, she pulled his head closer and kissed him on the cheek. «Thank you, Lord Rahl, for bringing me back. Thank you for saving me. You made me see again that I want to live. It is I who is supposed to be protecting your life, and you are the one to risk yours to save me.»
She again searched his eyes with leisurely satisfaction. It was completely unlike the way a Mord-Sith had of gazing through a person, of seeing all the way into their soul. This was an emotion of regard born of her appreciation for his value to her. In the purest sense, it was love. She showed absolutely no reticence in him seeing her feelings laid bare.
He supposed that, after what they had just shared, any such modesty would be pointless. He knew, though, that this was more, that this was Cara; sincere, unafraid, and unashamed.
«There has never been a Lord Rahl like you.»
«Cara, you don't know how glad I am to have you back with me.»
She held his head in both her hands and kissed his forehead. «Oh, but I do know. I know what you suffered for me this night. I know very well how much you wanted me back. I know very well what you did for me.» She slipped her arms around his neck again and hugged him tight. «I have never been afraid like that, not even when I was first.»
He touched his fingers to her lips to silence what she had been about to say for fear that it would break the spell, that it would too soon bring the armor of Mord-Sith back into her beautiful blue eyes. He knew what she had been about to say. He knew that madness.
«Thank you, Lord Rahl,» she whispered in wonder when he took his lingers away. «Thank you for everything, and for not letting me say what I had been about to say.» With a twitch of her brow, pain ghosted across her face. «That is why there has never been a Lord Rahl like you before. They all created Mord-Sith. They all brought the pain. You ended it.»
Richard couldn't force any words past the lump in his throat, so he simply brushed her blond hair from her forehead and smiled at her. He was so happy to have her back that he couldn't put it into words.
He gazed around the room, then, trying to judge how late it was.
«I don't know how long it took you to heal me,» she said as she watched him surveying the curtains for any sign of the approach of dawn. «But after you did, you were so exhausted that you seemed to collapse into sleep. I couldn't wake you — I didn't want to wake you.» Her arms still loosely around his neck, she gazed up at him with a blissful smile, looking as if she never wanted to move. «I was so weak that I fell asleep as well.»
«Cara, we have to get out of here.»
«What do you mean?»
Richard pushed himself up, the urgency of the situation becoming all too clear. His head spun sickeningly. «I used magic to heal you.»
She nodded, looking uncharacteristically content at the mention of magic and her in the same breath. This had been magic that had shown her the wonder of life.
What he was getting at abruptly became clear to her. She sat up in a rush, but had to put a hand back to steady herself.
Richard stood on trembling legs. He realized then that he was still wearing his sword. He was glad to have it at hand. «If Jagang's beast is around, then it might have sensed that I used my gift. I don't know where it might be, but I'd not like to be lying here when it returns.»
«Nor would I. Once was enough for a lifetime.»
He held out an arm and helped her stand. She balanced in a stiff posture for a moment before gathering her senses and loosening her pose. It somehow seemed startling to him to see that she was dressed in her red leather. After having been so close to her, after having been within her, in a sense, clothes seemed somehow alien.
In some inexplicable manner, Cara drew the aura of Mord-Sith around herself.
She smiled. The composed confidence in that smile lifting his heart. «I'm all right,» she said as if to tell him to stop worrying. «I'm back with you.»
The steel was back in her eyes. Cara was indeed back.
Richard nodded. «Me too. I'm feeling better now that I'm waking up.» He gestured to her pack. «Let's get our things and get moving.»
He was exhausted and didn't have any reserve of strength left.
As the specter of failure loomed, and the full realization of what such a failure would mean came to him, he rallied his will and exerted greater effort to fight his way toward the remote light of consciousness. Even though he was aware that he had managed to come partially awake, he was still in some distant, deep place and having difficulty completing the journey. He struggled to rise up, struggled for the life above, but couldn't break through.
Even as Richard tried to press himself harder, it seemed too difficult, too far. For the first time, he considered the peace of surrender — truly considered it, as had she before it had dragged her under.
The deadly fangs of failure hovered closer.
Driven by the fright of the full realization of everything that such a defeat would mean, he drew together his strength, focused his will, and with desperate passion reached toward the world of life.
With a gasp, his eyes opened.
The pain had been crushing. He felt dizzy and sick from the encounter with such malevolence. He still trembled with the power of it. After such raw inner violence, he feared that every hammer beat of his heart might be the last. The slick touch of depravity had bequeathed him a repugnant memory of the gagging stench of rotting corpses, making it nearly impossible to draw the full breath he needed.
He had reached into Cara's soul and he had felt an alien evil lurking there, within her, sucking the life from her, pulling her into the dark eternity of death. It had been a debilitating dread beyond anything he had ever felt before, beyond the mere fear of the black abyss of eternity.
It had been the grinning, linked vow of unimaginable terrors that were coming for him.
At first it had seemed that he had touched the icy face of death itself, but he now knew that he hadn't. Despite his revulsion, he knew that it was something other than simply death.
Death was merely a part of its poisonous architecture.
Death was inanimate. This was not.
He hurt so much that he was unsure at that moment if he would have the strength to ever stand again, the strength required to live. His bones ached. The marrow of his bones ached. He couldn't seem to stop trembling. Yet the pain was more than mere physical agony; it was an abhorrent misery that had seeped through his soul and touched every aspect of his existence.
The quiet room at last began to float into focus around him. The lamps still held back the veil of darkness. Beyond the heavy drapes the cicadas still sang their song of life.
Lying on the bed, still embracing Cara protectively in his arms, Richard was at last able to draw the full breath he so desperately needed. As he did, he relished the fragrance of her hair, savored the scent of the warm, moist skin along the curve of her neck, and in so doing the agony began to recede.
He felt Cara's arms tightly embracing him. Downy soft hair behind her ear caressed the side of his face.
«Cara?» he whispered.
She reached up and ran a hand tenderly down the back of his head as she unashamedly held him against her. «Shh,» she soothed in his ear. «It's all right.»
He was having trouble making sense of things.
He was somewhat disoriented to find himself holding Cara in his arms, to find her holding him so tenderly in hers, to realize they were locked in such an intimate embrace. He could feel the entire length of her pressed against him. But then, nothing could be more intimate than what they had shared in that dark place as they together faced the evil that had taken her.
He ran his tongue across his cracked lips and tasted salty tears.
«Cara.»
She nodded against the side of his face. «Shh,» she soothed again. «It's all right. I'm with you. I won't leave you.»
He drew away just enough to look into her eyes. They were blue and clear, revealing a depth he had never seen before. She studied his face with a kind of caring, knowing sympathy.
At that moment, he clearly saw in her eyes that this was Cara and no more. In that moment, he saw that the appellation of Mord-Sith had been stripped away down to her soul. In that moment, it was Cara, the woman, the individual, and nothing else.
It was as revealing and profound a view of her as he had ever had. It was startlingly beautiful.
«You are a very rare person, Richard Rahl.»
The soft breath of her words against his face soothed some of the lingering pain as seductively as did her arms, as did her eyes, as did her words, as did the living, breathing warmth of her.
Even so, the agony he had lifted from her still coursed through him, seeking to pull him back toward darkness and death. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he fought it with his love of life, and with his joy that Cara was alive.
«I am a wizard,» he whispered back.
She stared up into his eyes as she slowly shook her head in wonder.
«There has never been a Lord Rahl like you before. I swear, there never has.»
With her arms around his neck, she pulled his head closer and kissed him on the cheek. «Thank you, Lord Rahl, for bringing me back. Thank you for saving me. You made me see again that I want to live. It is I who is supposed to be protecting your life, and you are the one to risk yours to save me.»
She again searched his eyes with leisurely satisfaction. It was completely unlike the way a Mord-Sith had of gazing through a person, of seeing all the way into their soul. This was an emotion of regard born of her appreciation for his value to her. In the purest sense, it was love. She showed absolutely no reticence in him seeing her feelings laid bare.
He supposed that, after what they had just shared, any such modesty would be pointless. He knew, though, that this was more, that this was Cara; sincere, unafraid, and unashamed.
«There has never been a Lord Rahl like you.»
«Cara, you don't know how glad I am to have you back with me.»
She held his head in both her hands and kissed his forehead. «Oh, but I do know. I know what you suffered for me this night. I know very well how much you wanted me back. I know very well what you did for me.» She slipped her arms around his neck again and hugged him tight. «I have never been afraid like that, not even when I was first.»
He touched his fingers to her lips to silence what she had been about to say for fear that it would break the spell, that it would too soon bring the armor of Mord-Sith back into her beautiful blue eyes. He knew what she had been about to say. He knew that madness.
«Thank you, Lord Rahl,» she whispered in wonder when he took his lingers away. «Thank you for everything, and for not letting me say what I had been about to say.» With a twitch of her brow, pain ghosted across her face. «That is why there has never been a Lord Rahl like you before. They all created Mord-Sith. They all brought the pain. You ended it.»
Richard couldn't force any words past the lump in his throat, so he simply brushed her blond hair from her forehead and smiled at her. He was so happy to have her back that he couldn't put it into words.
He gazed around the room, then, trying to judge how late it was.
«I don't know how long it took you to heal me,» she said as she watched him surveying the curtains for any sign of the approach of dawn. «But after you did, you were so exhausted that you seemed to collapse into sleep. I couldn't wake you — I didn't want to wake you.» Her arms still loosely around his neck, she gazed up at him with a blissful smile, looking as if she never wanted to move. «I was so weak that I fell asleep as well.»
«Cara, we have to get out of here.»
«What do you mean?»
Richard pushed himself up, the urgency of the situation becoming all too clear. His head spun sickeningly. «I used magic to heal you.»
She nodded, looking uncharacteristically content at the mention of magic and her in the same breath. This had been magic that had shown her the wonder of life.
What he was getting at abruptly became clear to her. She sat up in a rush, but had to put a hand back to steady herself.
Richard stood on trembling legs. He realized then that he was still wearing his sword. He was glad to have it at hand. «If Jagang's beast is around, then it might have sensed that I used my gift. I don't know where it might be, but I'd not like to be lying here when it returns.»
«Nor would I. Once was enough for a lifetime.»
He held out an arm and helped her stand. She balanced in a stiff posture for a moment before gathering her senses and loosening her pose. It somehow seemed startling to him to see that she was dressed in her red leather. After having been so close to her, after having been within her, in a sense, clothes seemed somehow alien.
In some inexplicable manner, Cara drew the aura of Mord-Sith around herself.
She smiled. The composed confidence in that smile lifting his heart. «I'm all right,» she said as if to tell him to stop worrying. «I'm back with you.»
The steel was back in her eyes. Cara was indeed back.
Richard nodded. «Me too. I'm feeling better now that I'm waking up.» He gestured to her pack. «Let's get our things and get moving.»
CHAPTER 20
Nicci stood at the edge of the hill, hands clasped, gazing across the grounds at the white marble statue lit by torches. The people of Altur'Rang had thought that such a noble figure, a symbol of liberty for them, should never go dark and so it was always lit.
Nicci had slowly paced the gloomy hall in the inn for much of the night, dispirited about the life slipping away on the other side of the door. She had tried everything she knew to save Cara, but it had been hopeless.
Nicci didn't know Cara all that well, but she certainly knew Richard. She probably knew him better than anyone alive, except, perhaps, his grandfather Zedd. She didn't know his past so well, the stories about his childhood or that sort of thing; she knew Richard the man. She knew him down to the core of his soul. There was no one alive she knew better.
She understood the depth of his grief at losing Cara. Throughout the vigil, Nicci's gift, unbidden, had brought her the sounds of some of that open misery. It broke Nicci's heart to have Richard suffer such a loss. She would have done anything to have spared him that.
At one point she had thought to go in and comfort Richard's grief, to ease some of it by sparing him at least a bit of the loneliness of it. The door would not open.
While it was puzzling, what she could sense told her that there were only two people inside and what she could hear told her that there was nothing more than simple sorrow on the other side, so she hadn't tried to force open the stuck door. Unable to bear the pain of listening to Richard's supplications to Cara as she lay dying, Nicci had eventually gone outside, finally ending up staring out across the black chasm of night to the statue he had created.
Other than being with Richard himself, there were few things Nicci would rather do than gaze at the majestic things he had created.
Sometimes the death of someone close had a way of making people see the world in a new light, a way of making them come back to those things that were most important in life. She wondered what Richard would once Cara passed away, if it would jolt him back to reality and he would finally abandon the search for phantoms and stand with the people who? wanted to be free of the Imperial Order.
Hearing footsteps, and then her name called, Nicci turned.
It was Richard, with someone else, approaching through the shadows. Nicci's heart sank. That could only mean that Cara's ordeal had finally ended.
As Richard came close, Nicci saw who was with him.
«Dear spirits, Richard,» she whispered, her eyes going wide, «what have you done?»
In the dim light of the distant torches Cara looked perfectly alive and well.
«Lord Rahl healed me,» she said, offhandedly, as if such an accomplishment had been a minor task of no more note than if he had helped her to fetch water.
Nicci stared in shock. «How?» was all she could say.
Richard looked as weary as if he had been through a battle. She half expected to see him covered in blood.
«I couldn't stand the thought of not doing something to try to help her,» he said. «I suppose that the need was strong enough so that I was able to somehow do what I needed to do in order to heal her.»
The meaning of why that door wouldn't open suddenly became all too clear. He had indeed been through a battle, and he was, in a sense, covered in blood, just not the kind one could see.
Nicci leaned toward him. «You used your gift.» It was a charge, not a question. Nonetheless he answered it.
«I guess so.»
«You guess so.» Nicci wished she could make herself not sound like she was mocking him. «I tried everything I knew. Nothing I did was able to reach her. I couldn't heal her. What did you do? And how did you manage to touch your Han?»
Richard shrugged self-consciously. «I'm not exactly sure of it all. I held her and I could feel that she was dying. I could feel her slipping farther and farther away. I kind of let myself-my mind-sink down into her, down into the core of who she is, down to where she needed the help. Once I reached that place of union with her, I collected her pain into myself so that she would have enough strength to take the warmth of life I offered her.»
Nicci understood very well the elaborate phenomenon he was describing, but she was astounded to hear it explained in such incidental terms. It was as if she had asked him how he carved such a lifelike statue in marble and he had said of his masterwork that he just cut off all the stone that didn't belong. While accurate, such an explanation was casual to the point of absurdity.
«You took upon yourself what was killing her?»
«I had to.»
Nicci pressed her fingertips to her temples. Even she, with all the powers she had at her disposal, and she had considerable power, to say nothing of her training, experience, and knowledge, could not undertake such a deed. She had to make an effort to slow her hammering heart.
«Do you have any idea at all of the danger involved in such an endeavor?»
Richard looked a little ill at ease by the heated tone of her questions. «It was the only way, Nicci,» he said in simple summary.
«It was the only way,» she repeated in astonishment. She could not believe what she was hearing. «Do you have any idea how much power it takes to embark on such a voyage of the soul, much less to ever come back from such a place? Or the peril in going there?»
He stuck his hands in his pockets as if he were a child being upbraided for misbehaving. «All I know is that it was the only way to get Cara back.»
«And he did,» Cara said, pointing a finger at Nicci not only for emphasis but to stress her defense of him. «Lord Rahl came for me.»
Nicci stared at the Mord-Sith. «Richard went to the brink of the world of the dead for you — and perhaps beyond.»
Cara stole a glance at Richard. «He did?»
Nicci slowly nodded. «Your spirit had already slipped into a twilight realm. You were beyond my reach. That was why I could not heal you.»
«Well, Lord Rahl did it.»
«Yes, he did.» Nicci reached out and with a finger lifted Cara's chin. «I hope that as long as you live you never forget what this man has just done for you. I doubt there is anyone living who could have-who would have-attempted such a thing.»
«He had to.» Cara gave Nicci a brazen smile. «Lord Rahl can't get along without me and he knows it.»
Richard turned aside as he smiled to himself.
Nicci could hardly believe such a casual attitude after such a monumental event. She took a breath in an attempt to control her voice and not give the wrong impression, an impression that she was displeased that he had healed Cara.
«You used your gift, Richard. The beast is already about and you used your gift.»
«I had to or we would have lost her.»
To Richard, it all seemed so simple and straightforward. At least he had the sense not to look as self-satisfied as Cara. Nicci planted her fists on her hips as she leaned closer to him.
«Don't you comprehend what you've done? You used your gift again. I warned you before that you must not do so. The beast is already somewhere close and by using your gift you just told it right where you are.»
«What did you expect me to do, let Cara die?»
«Yes! She is sworn to protect you with her life. That is her job-her sworn duty. Not helping you to bring the beast closer to you. We could easily have lost you in such an attempt, to say nothing of the profound menace you have just awakened. You risked all you mean to the people of D'Hara and your value to our cause just to save one person. You should have let her go. In saving her you have only allowed her to bring death to both of you because the beast will now be able to find you. What just happened will now happen again, only this time there will be no escape. You have just saved Cara's life at the price of your own, and no doubt hers in the bargain.»
Even as she spoke Nicci knew by the smoldering anger in his eyes that she was not doing a good job of making him see what she meant. Cara's eyes, on the other hand, revealed sudden alarm verging on panic. Richard placed a hand on the back of her neck and gave it a reassuring squeeze, as if to tell her to ignore such a supposition.
«That's not certain, Nicci.» The muscles in his jaw flexed as he gritted his teeth. «It may be a possibility, but it's not certain-and besides, I wasn't going to let someone I care about die just because it might make me a little safer. I'm already hunted. Letting Cara die wouldn't have changed that.»
Nicci let her hands flop down against her thighs. He was in no mood to hear anyone speak against saving the life of a woman he cared deeply for.
Nicci had no idea how she could explain it to him in a way that could make him understand the magnitude of the forces he had invoked or the grave danger he had unleashed. How could she say anything and not have him misunderstand her meaning? In the end, she knew she couldn't.
Nicci placed a hand on his shoulder. «I guess I can't blame you, Richard. I guess that in your place, I would have done the same. Someday, when we have the luxury of time we will have to talk about this. When we are able, I would like you to tell me everything you did. Maybe I can help you learn to better control what you alone were able to harness. If nothing else maybe I can at least make things you do spontaneously a little more focused and a little less dangerous.»
Richard nodded his appreciation, whether of her offer or her softer tone she wasn't sure.
Nicci could see in Richard and Cara's eyes that the experience had brought the two of them closer. When she realized that he would soon be leaving, Nicci's brief bout of joy at seeing Cara alive and well faded.
«Besides,» Richard said as he scanned the darkness, «we don't even know if this had anything to do with the thing back in the woods.»
«Well of course it did,» Nicci said.
His gaze returned to her. «How do you know? That thing tore all those men apart. This was a different kind of attack. For that matter, we don't even know for certain that either attack was the beast that Jagang ordered to be created.»
«What are you talking about? What else could it be? It has to be the weapon that Jagang directed the Sisters to conjure.»
«I'm not saying that it isn't-it very well could be-but a lot of it doesn't make any sense to me.»
«Like what?»
Richard raked his fingers back through his hair. «The thing in the forest attacked the men-it didn't attack me even though I wasn't far away. Here, it didn't bother to tear Cara apart like it did the men. If it was the same thing, then we know it could have easily killed me. So when it was right here and had the chance, why didn't it use the opportunity?»
«Maybe because I tried to capture its power,» Cara offered. «Maybe it just passed me by because I was a threat or maybe I distracted it enough that it decided to flee.»
Richard shook his head. «You were no threat. It went right through you, and besides, its touch was enough to eliminate your interference. Then, it came through the wall for me, but as it reached my room it didn't flee, it simply disappeared.»
Nicci abruptly turned suspicious. She never had heard the whole story.
«You were in the room and it just vanished?»
«Not exactly. I jumped out the window to escape it as it came through the wall into my room. As I hung there some kind of dark thing, like a moving shadow, came out the window and as it did it seemed to evaporate into the night.»
Nicci idly drew the end of the cord of her bodice through her fingers as she considered what he'd said. She tried to fit the pieces into everything else she knew, but none of it would match. Nothing that the beast did seemed to make sense-if it really was the same beast. Richard was right in that it all seemed to defy logic.
«Maybe it didn't see you,» she murmured half to herself as she considered the puzzle.
Richard flashed her a skeptical expression. «So you're saying that it could find me, at night, inside the inn, and it then crashed right through a succession of walls as it was coming for me, but then when I just barely managed to jump through the only window, it became confused and so it wandered off?»
Nicci appraised his eyes a moment. «Both attacks have something important in common. They both displayed incredible power-shattering trees like they were twigs and going through walls as if they were no more than paper.»
Richard sighed unhappily. «I suppose that's true.»
«What I'd like to know,» Nicci added as she folded her arms, «is why it didn't kill Cara.»
She caught the slight flicker in his eyes and she knew then that he knew something more than he had said. Nicci cocked her head as she watched him while she waited.
«When I was there in Cara's mind, taking up the pain of the touch of that vile thing, there was something more that it left behind,» he admitted in a quiet voice. «I think it wanted to leave a message for me to find, a message that it's coming for me, that it will find me, and that for all eternity it will make my death a luxury beyond reach.»
Nicci's gaze slid to Cara.
«I didn't choose for him to come after me to that twilight place, as you called it. I didn't ask him to and I didn't want him to.» The Mord-Sith's hands fisted at her sides. «But I can't lie and say that I'd rather be dead.»
Nicci couldn't help but to smile at such simple honesty.
«Cara, I'm joyful that you're not dead-I truly am. What kind of man would we be following if he easily let a friend die without trying his best to save her?»
Cara's expression cooled as Nicci looked again at Richard.
«I'm still perplexed as to why it didn't kill Cara. After all, a message like that could have just as easily been given directly to you once it had you in its clutches. If the threat is credible-and I certainly don't doubt that it is-then the beast would have all the time it wished to make you suffer if it would have snatched you right then. Such a message serves no real purpose. What's more, it makes no sense for the beast to be right there and then vanish.»
Richard drummed his fingers on the cross guard of his sword as he thought it over. «All good questions, Nicci, but I just don't have good answers.»
With the palm of his left hand resting on the hilt of his sword, he scanned the darkness again, checking for any threat. «I think Cara and I had better be on our way. Considering what happened to Victor's men, I'm concerned about what will happen if that thing comes back here after me. I'd not like that kind of beast rampaging through the city in a blood frenzy. I don't want any more people to be needlessly hurt or killed. Whatever that thing is-the beast Jagang had his Sisters conjure, or something we don't even know about-it seems to me that I'll have a better chance to stay alive if I keep moving. Sitting in one place feels too much like waiting for the executioner to arrive.»
«I don't think that you are necessarily making logical assumptions,» Nicci said.
«Nonetheless I need to be going anyway and I'd feel better if it was sooner rather than later-for a variety of reasons.» He hoisted his pack higher on his back. «I have to find Victor and Ishaq.»
Resigned, Nicci gestured behind her. «After the attack I went and got them. They are both over at the stables, back there. Ishaq has the horses you requested. Some of the men helped him gather supplies for you.» She put a hand on his arm. «Some of the relatives of Victor's men, the ones who were killed, are there, too. They want to hear from you.»
Richard nodded as he let out a deep breath. «I hope I can offer them some comfort. Grief is fresh in my mind.» He gave Cara a quick squeeze on her shoulder. «But mine has been lifted.»
Richard hitched his bow higher up onto his shoulder as he started away. In little more than a blink he dissolved into the darkness.
Nicci had slowly paced the gloomy hall in the inn for much of the night, dispirited about the life slipping away on the other side of the door. She had tried everything she knew to save Cara, but it had been hopeless.
Nicci didn't know Cara all that well, but she certainly knew Richard. She probably knew him better than anyone alive, except, perhaps, his grandfather Zedd. She didn't know his past so well, the stories about his childhood or that sort of thing; she knew Richard the man. She knew him down to the core of his soul. There was no one alive she knew better.
She understood the depth of his grief at losing Cara. Throughout the vigil, Nicci's gift, unbidden, had brought her the sounds of some of that open misery. It broke Nicci's heart to have Richard suffer such a loss. She would have done anything to have spared him that.
At one point she had thought to go in and comfort Richard's grief, to ease some of it by sparing him at least a bit of the loneliness of it. The door would not open.
While it was puzzling, what she could sense told her that there were only two people inside and what she could hear told her that there was nothing more than simple sorrow on the other side, so she hadn't tried to force open the stuck door. Unable to bear the pain of listening to Richard's supplications to Cara as she lay dying, Nicci had eventually gone outside, finally ending up staring out across the black chasm of night to the statue he had created.
Other than being with Richard himself, there were few things Nicci would rather do than gaze at the majestic things he had created.
Sometimes the death of someone close had a way of making people see the world in a new light, a way of making them come back to those things that were most important in life. She wondered what Richard would once Cara passed away, if it would jolt him back to reality and he would finally abandon the search for phantoms and stand with the people who? wanted to be free of the Imperial Order.
Hearing footsteps, and then her name called, Nicci turned.
It was Richard, with someone else, approaching through the shadows. Nicci's heart sank. That could only mean that Cara's ordeal had finally ended.
As Richard came close, Nicci saw who was with him.
«Dear spirits, Richard,» she whispered, her eyes going wide, «what have you done?»
In the dim light of the distant torches Cara looked perfectly alive and well.
«Lord Rahl healed me,» she said, offhandedly, as if such an accomplishment had been a minor task of no more note than if he had helped her to fetch water.
Nicci stared in shock. «How?» was all she could say.
Richard looked as weary as if he had been through a battle. She half expected to see him covered in blood.
«I couldn't stand the thought of not doing something to try to help her,» he said. «I suppose that the need was strong enough so that I was able to somehow do what I needed to do in order to heal her.»
The meaning of why that door wouldn't open suddenly became all too clear. He had indeed been through a battle, and he was, in a sense, covered in blood, just not the kind one could see.
Nicci leaned toward him. «You used your gift.» It was a charge, not a question. Nonetheless he answered it.
«I guess so.»
«You guess so.» Nicci wished she could make herself not sound like she was mocking him. «I tried everything I knew. Nothing I did was able to reach her. I couldn't heal her. What did you do? And how did you manage to touch your Han?»
Richard shrugged self-consciously. «I'm not exactly sure of it all. I held her and I could feel that she was dying. I could feel her slipping farther and farther away. I kind of let myself-my mind-sink down into her, down into the core of who she is, down to where she needed the help. Once I reached that place of union with her, I collected her pain into myself so that she would have enough strength to take the warmth of life I offered her.»
Nicci understood very well the elaborate phenomenon he was describing, but she was astounded to hear it explained in such incidental terms. It was as if she had asked him how he carved such a lifelike statue in marble and he had said of his masterwork that he just cut off all the stone that didn't belong. While accurate, such an explanation was casual to the point of absurdity.
«You took upon yourself what was killing her?»
«I had to.»
Nicci pressed her fingertips to her temples. Even she, with all the powers she had at her disposal, and she had considerable power, to say nothing of her training, experience, and knowledge, could not undertake such a deed. She had to make an effort to slow her hammering heart.
«Do you have any idea at all of the danger involved in such an endeavor?»
Richard looked a little ill at ease by the heated tone of her questions. «It was the only way, Nicci,» he said in simple summary.
«It was the only way,» she repeated in astonishment. She could not believe what she was hearing. «Do you have any idea how much power it takes to embark on such a voyage of the soul, much less to ever come back from such a place? Or the peril in going there?»
He stuck his hands in his pockets as if he were a child being upbraided for misbehaving. «All I know is that it was the only way to get Cara back.»
«And he did,» Cara said, pointing a finger at Nicci not only for emphasis but to stress her defense of him. «Lord Rahl came for me.»
Nicci stared at the Mord-Sith. «Richard went to the brink of the world of the dead for you — and perhaps beyond.»
Cara stole a glance at Richard. «He did?»
Nicci slowly nodded. «Your spirit had already slipped into a twilight realm. You were beyond my reach. That was why I could not heal you.»
«Well, Lord Rahl did it.»
«Yes, he did.» Nicci reached out and with a finger lifted Cara's chin. «I hope that as long as you live you never forget what this man has just done for you. I doubt there is anyone living who could have-who would have-attempted such a thing.»
«He had to.» Cara gave Nicci a brazen smile. «Lord Rahl can't get along without me and he knows it.»
Richard turned aside as he smiled to himself.
Nicci could hardly believe such a casual attitude after such a monumental event. She took a breath in an attempt to control her voice and not give the wrong impression, an impression that she was displeased that he had healed Cara.
«You used your gift, Richard. The beast is already about and you used your gift.»
«I had to or we would have lost her.»
To Richard, it all seemed so simple and straightforward. At least he had the sense not to look as self-satisfied as Cara. Nicci planted her fists on her hips as she leaned closer to him.
«Don't you comprehend what you've done? You used your gift again. I warned you before that you must not do so. The beast is already somewhere close and by using your gift you just told it right where you are.»
«What did you expect me to do, let Cara die?»
«Yes! She is sworn to protect you with her life. That is her job-her sworn duty. Not helping you to bring the beast closer to you. We could easily have lost you in such an attempt, to say nothing of the profound menace you have just awakened. You risked all you mean to the people of D'Hara and your value to our cause just to save one person. You should have let her go. In saving her you have only allowed her to bring death to both of you because the beast will now be able to find you. What just happened will now happen again, only this time there will be no escape. You have just saved Cara's life at the price of your own, and no doubt hers in the bargain.»
Even as she spoke Nicci knew by the smoldering anger in his eyes that she was not doing a good job of making him see what she meant. Cara's eyes, on the other hand, revealed sudden alarm verging on panic. Richard placed a hand on the back of her neck and gave it a reassuring squeeze, as if to tell her to ignore such a supposition.
«That's not certain, Nicci.» The muscles in his jaw flexed as he gritted his teeth. «It may be a possibility, but it's not certain-and besides, I wasn't going to let someone I care about die just because it might make me a little safer. I'm already hunted. Letting Cara die wouldn't have changed that.»
Nicci let her hands flop down against her thighs. He was in no mood to hear anyone speak against saving the life of a woman he cared deeply for.
Nicci had no idea how she could explain it to him in a way that could make him understand the magnitude of the forces he had invoked or the grave danger he had unleashed. How could she say anything and not have him misunderstand her meaning? In the end, she knew she couldn't.
Nicci placed a hand on his shoulder. «I guess I can't blame you, Richard. I guess that in your place, I would have done the same. Someday, when we have the luxury of time we will have to talk about this. When we are able, I would like you to tell me everything you did. Maybe I can help you learn to better control what you alone were able to harness. If nothing else maybe I can at least make things you do spontaneously a little more focused and a little less dangerous.»
Richard nodded his appreciation, whether of her offer or her softer tone she wasn't sure.
Nicci could see in Richard and Cara's eyes that the experience had brought the two of them closer. When she realized that he would soon be leaving, Nicci's brief bout of joy at seeing Cara alive and well faded.
«Besides,» Richard said as he scanned the darkness, «we don't even know if this had anything to do with the thing back in the woods.»
«Well of course it did,» Nicci said.
His gaze returned to her. «How do you know? That thing tore all those men apart. This was a different kind of attack. For that matter, we don't even know for certain that either attack was the beast that Jagang ordered to be created.»
«What are you talking about? What else could it be? It has to be the weapon that Jagang directed the Sisters to conjure.»
«I'm not saying that it isn't-it very well could be-but a lot of it doesn't make any sense to me.»
«Like what?»
Richard raked his fingers back through his hair. «The thing in the forest attacked the men-it didn't attack me even though I wasn't far away. Here, it didn't bother to tear Cara apart like it did the men. If it was the same thing, then we know it could have easily killed me. So when it was right here and had the chance, why didn't it use the opportunity?»
«Maybe because I tried to capture its power,» Cara offered. «Maybe it just passed me by because I was a threat or maybe I distracted it enough that it decided to flee.»
Richard shook his head. «You were no threat. It went right through you, and besides, its touch was enough to eliminate your interference. Then, it came through the wall for me, but as it reached my room it didn't flee, it simply disappeared.»
Nicci abruptly turned suspicious. She never had heard the whole story.
«You were in the room and it just vanished?»
«Not exactly. I jumped out the window to escape it as it came through the wall into my room. As I hung there some kind of dark thing, like a moving shadow, came out the window and as it did it seemed to evaporate into the night.»
Nicci idly drew the end of the cord of her bodice through her fingers as she considered what he'd said. She tried to fit the pieces into everything else she knew, but none of it would match. Nothing that the beast did seemed to make sense-if it really was the same beast. Richard was right in that it all seemed to defy logic.
«Maybe it didn't see you,» she murmured half to herself as she considered the puzzle.
Richard flashed her a skeptical expression. «So you're saying that it could find me, at night, inside the inn, and it then crashed right through a succession of walls as it was coming for me, but then when I just barely managed to jump through the only window, it became confused and so it wandered off?»
Nicci appraised his eyes a moment. «Both attacks have something important in common. They both displayed incredible power-shattering trees like they were twigs and going through walls as if they were no more than paper.»
Richard sighed unhappily. «I suppose that's true.»
«What I'd like to know,» Nicci added as she folded her arms, «is why it didn't kill Cara.»
She caught the slight flicker in his eyes and she knew then that he knew something more than he had said. Nicci cocked her head as she watched him while she waited.
«When I was there in Cara's mind, taking up the pain of the touch of that vile thing, there was something more that it left behind,» he admitted in a quiet voice. «I think it wanted to leave a message for me to find, a message that it's coming for me, that it will find me, and that for all eternity it will make my death a luxury beyond reach.»
Nicci's gaze slid to Cara.
«I didn't choose for him to come after me to that twilight place, as you called it. I didn't ask him to and I didn't want him to.» The Mord-Sith's hands fisted at her sides. «But I can't lie and say that I'd rather be dead.»
Nicci couldn't help but to smile at such simple honesty.
«Cara, I'm joyful that you're not dead-I truly am. What kind of man would we be following if he easily let a friend die without trying his best to save her?»
Cara's expression cooled as Nicci looked again at Richard.
«I'm still perplexed as to why it didn't kill Cara. After all, a message like that could have just as easily been given directly to you once it had you in its clutches. If the threat is credible-and I certainly don't doubt that it is-then the beast would have all the time it wished to make you suffer if it would have snatched you right then. Such a message serves no real purpose. What's more, it makes no sense for the beast to be right there and then vanish.»
Richard drummed his fingers on the cross guard of his sword as he thought it over. «All good questions, Nicci, but I just don't have good answers.»
With the palm of his left hand resting on the hilt of his sword, he scanned the darkness again, checking for any threat. «I think Cara and I had better be on our way. Considering what happened to Victor's men, I'm concerned about what will happen if that thing comes back here after me. I'd not like that kind of beast rampaging through the city in a blood frenzy. I don't want any more people to be needlessly hurt or killed. Whatever that thing is-the beast Jagang had his Sisters conjure, or something we don't even know about-it seems to me that I'll have a better chance to stay alive if I keep moving. Sitting in one place feels too much like waiting for the executioner to arrive.»
«I don't think that you are necessarily making logical assumptions,» Nicci said.
«Nonetheless I need to be going anyway and I'd feel better if it was sooner rather than later-for a variety of reasons.» He hoisted his pack higher on his back. «I have to find Victor and Ishaq.»
Resigned, Nicci gestured behind her. «After the attack I went and got them. They are both over at the stables, back there. Ishaq has the horses you requested. Some of the men helped him gather supplies for you.» She put a hand on his arm. «Some of the relatives of Victor's men, the ones who were killed, are there, too. They want to hear from you.»
Richard nodded as he let out a deep breath. «I hope I can offer them some comfort. Grief is fresh in my mind.» He gave Cara a quick squeeze on her shoulder. «But mine has been lifted.»
Richard hitched his bow higher up onto his shoulder as he started away. In little more than a blink he dissolved into the darkness.
CHAPTER 21
As Cara went past, following in Richard's wake, Nicci caught the Mord-Sith's arm, holding her back until she could speak without Richard hearing.
«How are you, Cara? Really?»
Cara met Nicci's direct gaze with a steady look of her own. «I'm tired, but I'm fine, now. Lord Rahl made it right.»
Nicci nodded her satisfaction. «Cara, may I ask you a personal question?»
«As long as I don't have to promise I'll answer it.»
«Do you have a man for whom you care greatly named Benjamin Meiffert?»
Even in the dim light, Nicci could see Cara's face go as scarlet as her red leather outfit. «Who told you such a thing?»
«Do you mean to say, then, that it's a secret and no one knows?»
«Well, that's not what I'm saying, exactly,» Cara stammered. «I mean — you're trying to trip me into saying something I don't intend.»
«I'm not trying to trip you into saying anything, especially something that isn't true. I only asked about Benjamin Meiffert.»
Cara's brow drew tight. «Who told you such a thing?»
«Richard.» Nicci arched an eyebrow. «Is it true?»
Cara pressed her lips tight. At last she looked away from Nicci to glare off into the night. «Yes.»
«So you told Richard all about how you care a great deal for this soldier?»
«Are you crazy? I would never have told such a thing to Lord Rahl. Where could he have heard it?»
For a moment, Nicci listened to the cicadas singing their incessant mating songs as she considered the Mord-Sith.
«Richard said that Kahlan told him all about it.»
Cara stood with her mouth agape. She at last touched her fingers to her forehead as she worked to gather her senses.
«Well that's just crazy — I, I must have told him myself. I guess I just forgot. We talk about so much. It's hard to recall everything I told him —but now that you bring it up, I think I do recall mentioning it one night when we were both talking about such sentimental things. I think that must have been when I told him about Benjamin Meiffert. I guess I pushed such a personal discussions to the back of my mind. I guess he didn't. I ought to learn to keep my mouth shut.»
«You have no need to fear anything you tell Richard. You have no better friend in the world. And you have no need to fear me knowing such things, either. He told me about it in the depth of his grief for you because he wanted me to know that you are more than just Mord-Sith, that you're a person with a life and desires of your own and you had come to value a good man. He was honoring you by telling me. But I will keep it to myself. Your feelings are safe with me, Cara.»
Cara idly tugged at strands of hair at the end of her single braid. «I guess I never looked at it quite that way-I mean about him honoring me by telling you. That's kind of — nice.»
«Love is a passion for life shared with another person. You fall in love with a person who you think is wonderful. It's your deepest appreciation of the value of that individual, and that individual is a reflection of what you value most in life. Love, for sound reasons, can be one of life's greatest rewards. You shouldn't be ashamed or embarrassed about being in love. I mean, if you really do love Benjamin, that is.»
Cara thought it over a moment. «I'm not ashamed of it; I am Mord-Sith.» Some of the tension went out of her shoulders. «But I don't know if I'm in love with him, either. I don't know for certain what I think about it. I know I care greatly for him. I'm not sure it's love, though. Maybe it's only the first step along the path to love. It's kind of hard for me to tell about such things. I'm not used to it mattering what I think or how I feel.»
Nicci nodded as she began walking slowly through the shadows. «For a lot of my life I didn't understand what love was either. Jagang used to sometimes think that he was in love with me.»
«Jagang? Seriously? He's in love with you?»
«No, he's not really in love with me; he just thinks he is. Even back then I knew that it wasn't love, even if I didn't understand why. Jagang's measure of worth runs from hate to lust. He scorns and defiles anything that's good about life, so he couldn't possibly experience true love. He can only discern it as the faint fragrance of something tantalizing and mysterious beyond his reach and he longs to possess it.
«He imagined that he could experience love by grabbing me by my hair and forcing me down on him. He interpreted his enjoyment as he watched as feelings of love. He thought that I should be grateful that he had such powerful feelings for me that he would be overcome with desire for me to the exclusion of everything else. Since he believed that forcing himself on me was an expression of his love, he thought I should accept it as an honor.»
«He would have liked Darken Rahl,» Cara muttered. «They would have gotten along splendidly.» She looked over, suddenly puzzled. «You're a sorceress. Why didn't you use your power to incinerate the bastard?»
Nicci let out a deep breath. How could she simply explain a lifetime of indoctrination?
«I don't think that a day goes by that I don't wish I would have killed that vile man. But, brought up as I was under the teachings of the Fellowship of Order, the same as he, I believed that moral virtue was only realized through self-sacrifice. Under their tenets, your duty is to those in need. Such dictates are imposed under the banner of the common good, or the betterment of mankind, or dutiful obedience to the Creator.
«By the ideology of the Order we were to devote ourselves not to those we regarded as the best among mankind, but to those who we ourselves regarded as the worst among men-not because they had earned it, but precisely because they hadn't. This, the Order claims, is the heart of morality and the only means by which we earn our entry into the everlasting light of the Creator in the afterlife. It's the sacrifice of the virtuous into servitude to the vile. It is never done under the banner of what it really is: naked greed for the unearned.
«How are you, Cara? Really?»
Cara met Nicci's direct gaze with a steady look of her own. «I'm tired, but I'm fine, now. Lord Rahl made it right.»
Nicci nodded her satisfaction. «Cara, may I ask you a personal question?»
«As long as I don't have to promise I'll answer it.»
«Do you have a man for whom you care greatly named Benjamin Meiffert?»
Even in the dim light, Nicci could see Cara's face go as scarlet as her red leather outfit. «Who told you such a thing?»
«Do you mean to say, then, that it's a secret and no one knows?»
«Well, that's not what I'm saying, exactly,» Cara stammered. «I mean — you're trying to trip me into saying something I don't intend.»
«I'm not trying to trip you into saying anything, especially something that isn't true. I only asked about Benjamin Meiffert.»
Cara's brow drew tight. «Who told you such a thing?»
«Richard.» Nicci arched an eyebrow. «Is it true?»
Cara pressed her lips tight. At last she looked away from Nicci to glare off into the night. «Yes.»
«So you told Richard all about how you care a great deal for this soldier?»
«Are you crazy? I would never have told such a thing to Lord Rahl. Where could he have heard it?»
For a moment, Nicci listened to the cicadas singing their incessant mating songs as she considered the Mord-Sith.
«Richard said that Kahlan told him all about it.»
Cara stood with her mouth agape. She at last touched her fingers to her forehead as she worked to gather her senses.
«Well that's just crazy — I, I must have told him myself. I guess I just forgot. We talk about so much. It's hard to recall everything I told him —but now that you bring it up, I think I do recall mentioning it one night when we were both talking about such sentimental things. I think that must have been when I told him about Benjamin Meiffert. I guess I pushed such a personal discussions to the back of my mind. I guess he didn't. I ought to learn to keep my mouth shut.»
«You have no need to fear anything you tell Richard. You have no better friend in the world. And you have no need to fear me knowing such things, either. He told me about it in the depth of his grief for you because he wanted me to know that you are more than just Mord-Sith, that you're a person with a life and desires of your own and you had come to value a good man. He was honoring you by telling me. But I will keep it to myself. Your feelings are safe with me, Cara.»
Cara idly tugged at strands of hair at the end of her single braid. «I guess I never looked at it quite that way-I mean about him honoring me by telling you. That's kind of — nice.»
«Love is a passion for life shared with another person. You fall in love with a person who you think is wonderful. It's your deepest appreciation of the value of that individual, and that individual is a reflection of what you value most in life. Love, for sound reasons, can be one of life's greatest rewards. You shouldn't be ashamed or embarrassed about being in love. I mean, if you really do love Benjamin, that is.»
Cara thought it over a moment. «I'm not ashamed of it; I am Mord-Sith.» Some of the tension went out of her shoulders. «But I don't know if I'm in love with him, either. I don't know for certain what I think about it. I know I care greatly for him. I'm not sure it's love, though. Maybe it's only the first step along the path to love. It's kind of hard for me to tell about such things. I'm not used to it mattering what I think or how I feel.»
Nicci nodded as she began walking slowly through the shadows. «For a lot of my life I didn't understand what love was either. Jagang used to sometimes think that he was in love with me.»
«Jagang? Seriously? He's in love with you?»
«No, he's not really in love with me; he just thinks he is. Even back then I knew that it wasn't love, even if I didn't understand why. Jagang's measure of worth runs from hate to lust. He scorns and defiles anything that's good about life, so he couldn't possibly experience true love. He can only discern it as the faint fragrance of something tantalizing and mysterious beyond his reach and he longs to possess it.
«He imagined that he could experience love by grabbing me by my hair and forcing me down on him. He interpreted his enjoyment as he watched as feelings of love. He thought that I should be grateful that he had such powerful feelings for me that he would be overcome with desire for me to the exclusion of everything else. Since he believed that forcing himself on me was an expression of his love, he thought I should accept it as an honor.»
«He would have liked Darken Rahl,» Cara muttered. «They would have gotten along splendidly.» She looked over, suddenly puzzled. «You're a sorceress. Why didn't you use your power to incinerate the bastard?»
Nicci let out a deep breath. How could she simply explain a lifetime of indoctrination?
«I don't think that a day goes by that I don't wish I would have killed that vile man. But, brought up as I was under the teachings of the Fellowship of Order, the same as he, I believed that moral virtue was only realized through self-sacrifice. Under their tenets, your duty is to those in need. Such dictates are imposed under the banner of the common good, or the betterment of mankind, or dutiful obedience to the Creator.
«By the ideology of the Order we were to devote ourselves not to those we regarded as the best among mankind, but to those who we ourselves regarded as the worst among men-not because they had earned it, but precisely because they hadn't. This, the Order claims, is the heart of morality and the only means by which we earn our entry into the everlasting light of the Creator in the afterlife. It's the sacrifice of the virtuous into servitude to the vile. It is never done under the banner of what it really is: naked greed for the unearned.