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«But then, the birthrate of prophets began to plummet and with each passing year there were fewer and fewer of them to attend to such duties. Because of this, the growth of the tree of prophecy began to slow.
«In essence, to explain it in simple terms you can understand, the tree of prophecy had in a way matured. Like an old monarch oak in a forest, these wizards knew that the vast tree of prophecy had many years of life ahead of it as a mature entity, but they also knew what the future eventually held in store.
«Like all things, the existence of prophecy could not be eternal. As time passed, prophetic events came to pass, becoming outdated. These no longer served any use. In this fashion, if nothing else, the passage of time would eventually supersede all the predictions dealt with in the work. In other words, without new prophecy, all the existing prophecy, whether or not they turned out to be true forks, nonetheless would eventually reach their chance in the chronological flux. As they did, their time passed —they would be used up.
«Thus, the commission studying the problem came to realize that the tree of prophecy, without the growth and life that it drew from prophets, from the constant stream of prophecy feeding the many branches, would eventually die. Their task, and the purpose of this book, Continuum Ratios and Viability Predictions, was to try to predict how and when this would happen.
«The best minds in prophecy studied the problem, took a measure of the health of the tree of prophecy. Through known formulas and predictions based on not only observed patterns in the decline of growth in prophecy, but a decline in prophets to sustain it, they determined how this particular tree of knowledge would become heavy with the deadwood of false and expired prophecy as prophetic forks were reached and chronology moved on down the sections of branches still viable. As this happened-as the tree of prophecy grew thick with age and deadwood that could no longer be culled by true prophets-they predicted how it would become susceptible to, to, well, a kind of malady, a decay, much like an old tree in the forest will eventually become susceptible to disease.
«That decline in viability, they found, would, over time, leave prophecy vulnerable to any number of ever growing problems. The infirmity that they concluded would be the most likely to strike first would come in a form they described as wormlike. They thought that it would begin to infest and destroy the living portions of the tree of prophecy itself, meaning the branches that are contemporary at the time of this wormlike infestation. In fact, they called it just that-a prophecy worm.»
The air felt heavy in the thick silence.
Hands in his back pockets, Richard shrugged. «So what's the cure?»
Astonished by the question, Zedd stared at Richard as if he'd just asked how to heal a thunderstorm. «Cure? Richard, these experts who wrote this book predicted that there wasn't any cure, as such. They concluded, in the end, that without the vitality provided by new prophets, the tree of prophecy would eventually rot and die.
«They said that prophecy would only come back strong and healthy when new prophets returned to the world-in effect, when a seed of new prophecy sprouted and flourished. Old trees die and make room for the new shoots. It was determined by these learned wizards that the fate of prophecy as we know it is also doomed to aging, infirmity, and eventual death.»
Richard had had to deal with any number of problems caused by prophecy, but the gloomy expressions around the table were infectious. It almost felt like a healer had come out of a back room to announce that an aging relative was near to passing on.
He thought about all the gifted prophets, devoted to their calling, who had worked all of their lives to contribute to this great body of work that was now withering and dying. He thought about the statue he himself had worked so hard to create and how it made him feel when it was destroyed.
He thought, too, that it might simply be the concept of death itself, in any form, that was so dismal because it reminded him of his own mortality — and of Kahlan's mortality.
He also thought that it might be the best thing that could happen. After all, if people no longer believed that prophecy had foreordained what would become of them, then maybe they would realize that they had to think for themselves and decide what was in their own best interest. Maybe, if unchained from a deterministic mindset, people would realize that it was they themselves who actually controlled their own destiny. If people comprehended what was really at stake, maybe they would come to realize the value of reason in the choices they made, instead of mindlessly just waiting for what was to happen, to happen.
«From what Ann and I have discovered,» Nathan said into the still, stale air of the library, «the branch of prophecy that is vanishing is that which refers to times roughly since Richard was born. That, of course, makes the most sense because temporal souls nourish the active, living tissue of prophecy upon which this prophecy worm would feed. But I was able to determine that it hasn't all simply vanished, yet.»
Zedd nodded. «It's dying back, but from the root, so some of it is still alive. I've found pockets of it alive and well.»
«That's right-especially the portions from the present on into the future. As you suggest, it seems that the scourge has attacked the core of these branches, which began two or three decades back and so far have not extensively eaten their way into future events.
«That leaves sections of this prophetic branch-the branch involving you-that are still alive,» the prophet said as he leaned on his hands toward Richard, «but once it dies, we will then lose even those prophecies, along with the memory of how profoundly important they are.»
Richard glanced from Nathan's grim expression to Ann's equally serious face. He knew they had arrived at last at the heart of their purpose.
«That is why we've come looking for you, Richard Rahl,» Ann said with grave intonation, «before it's too late. We have come about prophecy that so far is still alive and has warned us of the most serious crisis to face us since the great war.»
Richard frowned, already unhappy that prophecy once again seemed about to cause him trouble. «What prophecy?»
Nathan pulled a small book out of a pocket and flipped it open. As he held it in both hands, he fixed Richard with a steady gaze to make sure he looked like he was going to listen carefully.
When Nathan was at last sure he had everyone's attention, he began. « 'In the year of the cicadas, when the champion of sacrifice and suffering, under the banner of both mankind and the Light'»-he glanced up from under his bushy eyebrows."that would be Emperor Jagang —'finally splits his swarm, thus shall be the sign that prophecy has been awakened and the final and deciding battle is upon us. Be cautioned, for all true forks and their derivatives are tangled in this mantic root. Only one trunk branches from this conjoined primal origin. If fuer grissa ost drauka does not lead this final battle, then the world, already standing at the brink of darkness, will fall under that terrible shadow.»
«Dear spirits,» Zedd whispered. «Fuer grissa ost drauka is a cardinal link to a prophecy founding a principal fork. Conjoining it with this prophecy establishes a conjugate bifurcation.»
Nathan arched an eyebrow. «Exactly.»
Richard didn't fully understand what Zedd had said, but he caught the drift. And he didn't need them to tell him who fuer grissa ost drauka, the bringer of death, was; it was him.
«Jagang has split his forces,» Ann said with quiet power as she fixed Richard in her steady gaze. «He brought his army up near to Aydindril, hoping to finish it, but the D'Haran forces, along with the people of the city, made use of winter to escape over the passes to D'Hara and out of Jagang's clutches.»
«I know,» Richard said. «That escape over the passes in winter was by Kahlan's orders. She's the one who told me about it.»
Cara looked up in surprise, apparently intending to dispute his account, but after a glance at Nicci she decided to remain silent — at least for the moment.
«At any rate,» Ann said, sounding annoyed by the interruption, «Jagang, unable to effectively use his vastly superior numbers to break through those heavily defended, very narrow passes, has finally decided to split his forces. Leaving an army to watch the passes, the emperor himself took the main element of his army south, headed all the way back down through the Midlands to skirt around the barrier of mountains and then hook around and make his way up into D'Hara.
«Our forces are headed south, down through D'Hara, to meet them. That was why when we were able to get a message from Verna about the condition of the books of prophecy at the People's Palace in D'Hara; she was able to ride south ahead of our army and go look them over herself.»
«This is the year that the cicadas are returning,» Nicci said, sounding alarmed. «I've seen them.»
«That's right,» Nathan said, still leaning forward on both hands. «That means the chronology is now fixed. The prophecies have all made their connections and have tumbled into place. Events are marked.» In turn, he met the gaze of everyone in the room. «The end is upon us.»
Zedd let out a low whistle.
«More importantly,» Ann said in an authoritative tone, «it means that it is time for Lord Rahl to join the D'Haran forces and lead them in the final battle. Without you there, Richard, prophecy is quite clear; all will be lost. We have come to escort you to your forces, to help insure that you make it. We dare not risk delay; we must leave at once.»
For the first time since they started talking about prophecy, Richard's knees felt weak.
«But I can't,» he said. «I have to find Kahlan.»
It sounded to him like a plea into a gale.
Ann took a deep breath, as if to bite her tongue while she searched for some urgently needed patience, or maybe words that would persuade him and finally settle the matter once and for all. The two Mord-Sith shared a look. Zedd pressed his thin lips tight while he considered. In frustration Nathan tossed the book he was holding on the table and wiped his hand across his face as he planted his left fist on a hip.
Richard didn't know what he could say to them all that would have any chance of making them understand that something profoundly serious was wrong in the world and Kahlan was only a piece of the puzzle-by far the most important piece, but still a part of something much larger. Ever since the morning when she had disappeared, he had argued himself sick about the urgent need to find her and it never seemed to do any good at convincing anyone that he knew what he was talking about. He had no interest in yet again wasting his energy on the same fruitless explanations.
«You what?» Ann said, her displeasure bubbling up to the surface like dross in a cauldron. At that moment, she was very much again the Prelate, a squat woman who somehow managed to seem towering.
«I have to find Kahlan,» Richard repeated.
«I don't know what you're talking about. We simply don't have time for any of this nonsense.» Ann had dismissed his wants, interests, and needs out of hand, to say nothing of what he believed were his rational and important reasons. «We have come to see to it that you get to the D'Haran army immediately. Everyone is waiting on you. Everyone is depending on you. The time has come when you must lead our forces in the final battle that is now rapidly descending upon us.»
«I can't,» Richard said in a quiet but firm voice.
«Prophecy demands it!» Ann shouted.
Richard realized that Ann had changed. Everyone had changed in little ways since Kahlan had disappeared, but Ann had changed in more overt ways. The last time she had come, with the very same purpose, to demand that Richard go with her to lead the war, Kahlan had thrown Ann's journey book in a fire, telling the former Prelate that prophecy was not driving events, but rather Ann was by trying to make people follow prophecy in an effort to make it come true, that she was acting as prophecy's enforcer. Kahlan had shown Ann how she herself, as the Prelate, by being prophecy's handmaiden, might very well have actually been the one who'd brought the world to the brink of cataclysm. Because of Kahlan's words, Ann had done some deep soul-searching that had eventually helped make her more rational, and more understanding of how Richard was the one who had to choose to do what was right.
Now, with the memory of Kahlan gone, everything that had happened with Kahlan was also wiped away. Ann, like everyone else, had reverted to the disposition she'd shown before Kahlan's influence. It made Richard's head hurt, sometimes, just trying to recall exactly what Kahlan had done with everyone that they wouldn't now remember so that he could take that into account when he dealt with them. With some people, like Shota, it had actually in some ways helped him. Shota, for instance, because of losing her memory of Kahlan, hadn't recalled that she told Richard that if he ever returned to Agaden Reach she would kill him. With other people, like Ann, it was proving to make matters much more difficult.
«Kahlan threw your journey book in a fire,» he told her. «She was fed up with you trying to control my life, as am I.»
Ann frowned. «I accidentally dropped my journey book in the fire myself.»
Richard sighed. «I see.» He didn't want to argue because he knew it would do no good. No one in the room believed him. Cara would do whatever he wanted her to do, but she didn't believe him. Nicci didn't believe him, but wanted him to act as he believed he must. Nicci was the one who had actually given him the most encouragement he had gotten since Kahlan had disappeared.
«Richard,» Nathan said in a gentler, more benevolent voice, «this is not some simple little thing. You have been born to prophecy. The world stands at the brink of a great dark age. You hold the key to preventing a slide into that long, terrible night. You are the one prophecy says can save our cause-the cause you yourself believe in. You must do your duty. You can't let us down.»
Richard was sick and tired of being driven by events. He was at his wits end with not understanding what was going on, with always feeling like he was one step behind the rest of the world and two steps behind whatever had happened to Kahlan. He was getting angry that everyone was telling him what to do and no one was interested in what was of paramount importance to him. They didn't even want to let him decide his own fate. They thought prophecy had already decided for him.
It had not.
He needed to find out the truth of what had happened to Kahlan. He needed to find Kahlan, period. He was fed up with wasting time on what prophecy, along with any number of people, thought he ought to be doing. Anyone who was not helping him was, in reality, holding him back from something vitally important.
«I have no responsibility to live up to what anyone else expects of me,» he said to Ann as he picked up the small book Nathan had brought with him.
Ann and Nathan stared in surprise.
He felt Nicci's reassuring hand on the small of his back. She may not believe in his memory of Kahlan, but at least she had helped him see that he had to be true to his principles. She wouldn't allow him to lose by default. She had been a valued friend when he needed one the most.
The only other person he knew who would stand by him in that way, stand up to him in that way, was Kahlan.
He thumbed past all the blank pages in the book Nathan had brought. Richard was curious to see if there was more that might change the picture, if they were only telling him what they wanted him to believe. He also would like to find something-anything-that would help him understand what was going on.
And something was going on. Zedd's explanation of the prophecy worm sounded airtight, but something about it bothered Richard. It explained the missing text in the books of prophecy in a way that suited what these people wanted to believe. It was too convenient and, worse, it was too much of a coincidence.
Coincidence always made Richard suspicious.
Nicci had a good point as well; it seemed just a little too convenient that the body buried down at the Confessors' Palace would have a ribbon with Kahlan's name embroidered on it — Just in case there was any doubt, should someone dig up the body?
After blank page upon blank page, Richard found the writing. It was exactly as Nathan had read it.
In the year of the cicadas, when the champion of sacrifice and suffering, under the banner of both mankind and the Light finally splits his swarm, thus shall be the sign that prophecy has been awakened and the final and deciding battle is upon us. Be cautioned, for all true forks and their derivatives are tangled in this mantic root. Only one trunk branches from this conjoined primal origin. If fuer grissa ost drauka does not lead this final battle, then the world, already standing at the brink of darkness, will fall under that terrible shadow.
There were several things about the passage that puzzled Richard. For one thing, the reference to cicadas. It seemed a lowly creature to be worthy of prophetic mention, to say nothing of such a central role in the —purportedly-most important prophecy in three thousand years. He supposed that it could make sense that it was a key that helped set the chronology, but, from what others had told him, prophecy never went out of its way to set chronology, making it one of prophecy's most difficult issues.
It also troubled him that this prophecy, so distant in so many ways from the other he had read at the Palace of the Prophets, would also refer to him in High D'Haran as fuer grissa ost drauka. He supposed that it could be, as Zedd had suggested, that such a linkage meant it was important.
But the link to the prophecy Richard had seen at the Palace of the Prophets with the reference to fuer grissa ost drauka was strongly connected to something else: the boxes of Orden.
In the old prophecy that named Richard the bringer of death, the word death meant three different things, depending on how it was used: the bringer of the underworld, the world of the dead; the bringer of spirits, spirits of the dead; and the bringer of death, meaning to kill. Each meaning was different, but all three were intended.
The second meaning had to do with how he used the Sword of Truth, and the third simply that he'd had to kill people. But the first meaning involved the boxes of Orden.
He supposed that in the context of the prophecy at hand, the third meaning seemed the obvious, that he had to lead the army and kill the enemy, so calling him fuer grissa ost drauka did make sense. Yet again, things seemed awfully convenient.
All the convenient explanations and coincidences were making Richard more than just a little suspicious. With Kahlan's disappearance involved, he felt that there had to be more to what was going on.
He turned to the page ahead of the passage, and then the one preceding it, checking. They were blank.
«I have a problem with this,» he said, looking up at all the eyes watching him.
«And what would that be?» Ann asked as she folded her arms. She used the same tone of voice she would have if she'd been talking to an inexperienced, untrained, ignorant boy freshly brought to the Palace of the Prophets to be trained in the use of his gift.
«Well, there's nothing around it,» he said. «It's all blank.»
Nathan covered his face with a hand while Ann threw her arms in the air in a gesture of baffled outrage. «Of course not! They've vanished, along with a great deal more. That's what we've just been talking about. That's why this one is so important!»
«But without knowing the context, you can't really say that this one is important, now, can you? To understand any information one must know the context.»
Contrary to Ann and Nathan's agitation, Zedd smiled to himself at lessons taught long ago and remembered.
Nathan looked up. «What does that have to do with this prophecy?»
«Well, for all we know, there might have been mitigating text right before this, or something right after that went on to dismiss this. With the copy missing how are we to know? This prophecy could have been superseded by just about anything.»
Zedd smiled. «The boy has a point.»
«He's not a boy,» Ann growled. «He's a man, and the Lord Rahl, the head of the D'Haran Empire that he himself pulled together to fight the Imperial Order, and he's supposed to lead those forces. All of our lives depend on him doing so.»
As Richard flipped back through the book, he saw writing that he hadn't seen the first time. He paged back to it.
«Here's something else that didn't vanish,» he said.
«What?» Nathan asked with incredulity as he twisted around to look. «There was nothing else. I'm sure of it.»
«Right here,» Richard said, tapping a finger on the words. «It says, 'Here we come.' What could that mean? And why did it not vanish?»
« 'Here we come'?» Nathan's face distorted in a look of confusion. «I never saw that before.»
Richard turned back more pages. «Look. Here it is again. Same thing. 'Here we come.'»
«I could have missed it once, perhaps,» Nathan said, «but there is no way I could have missed a second one. You must be wrong.»
«No, look,» Richard said, turning the book to show the prophet. He went backward through the book, turning blank pages until he came to writing. «Here it is again. A whole page of the same thing written over and over.»
Nathan's jaw hung in speechless astonishment. Nicci peered over Richard's shoulder. Zedd rushed around next to him to see the writing in the book. Even the two Mord-Sith came to have a look.
Richard turned a page forward, to what a moment before had been blank. There, down the page, was the same sentence written over and over and over.
Here we come.
«I watched you turning it back.» Nicci's silken voice carried a clear undertone of disquiet. «I know that page was blank an instant ago.»
Goose bumps prickled up Richard's arms. The hair at the nape of his neck lifted.
He looked up and saw something dark coalescing out of the deep shadows beneath the beam of sunlight coming from the high window at the end of the room.
Too late, he remembered Shota's warning not to read prophecy, that if he did the blood beast would be able to find him.
He reached for his sword.
His sword wasn't there.
CHAPTER 53
«In essence, to explain it in simple terms you can understand, the tree of prophecy had in a way matured. Like an old monarch oak in a forest, these wizards knew that the vast tree of prophecy had many years of life ahead of it as a mature entity, but they also knew what the future eventually held in store.
«Like all things, the existence of prophecy could not be eternal. As time passed, prophetic events came to pass, becoming outdated. These no longer served any use. In this fashion, if nothing else, the passage of time would eventually supersede all the predictions dealt with in the work. In other words, without new prophecy, all the existing prophecy, whether or not they turned out to be true forks, nonetheless would eventually reach their chance in the chronological flux. As they did, their time passed —they would be used up.
«Thus, the commission studying the problem came to realize that the tree of prophecy, without the growth and life that it drew from prophets, from the constant stream of prophecy feeding the many branches, would eventually die. Their task, and the purpose of this book, Continuum Ratios and Viability Predictions, was to try to predict how and when this would happen.
«The best minds in prophecy studied the problem, took a measure of the health of the tree of prophecy. Through known formulas and predictions based on not only observed patterns in the decline of growth in prophecy, but a decline in prophets to sustain it, they determined how this particular tree of knowledge would become heavy with the deadwood of false and expired prophecy as prophetic forks were reached and chronology moved on down the sections of branches still viable. As this happened-as the tree of prophecy grew thick with age and deadwood that could no longer be culled by true prophets-they predicted how it would become susceptible to, to, well, a kind of malady, a decay, much like an old tree in the forest will eventually become susceptible to disease.
«That decline in viability, they found, would, over time, leave prophecy vulnerable to any number of ever growing problems. The infirmity that they concluded would be the most likely to strike first would come in a form they described as wormlike. They thought that it would begin to infest and destroy the living portions of the tree of prophecy itself, meaning the branches that are contemporary at the time of this wormlike infestation. In fact, they called it just that-a prophecy worm.»
The air felt heavy in the thick silence.
Hands in his back pockets, Richard shrugged. «So what's the cure?»
Astonished by the question, Zedd stared at Richard as if he'd just asked how to heal a thunderstorm. «Cure? Richard, these experts who wrote this book predicted that there wasn't any cure, as such. They concluded, in the end, that without the vitality provided by new prophets, the tree of prophecy would eventually rot and die.
«They said that prophecy would only come back strong and healthy when new prophets returned to the world-in effect, when a seed of new prophecy sprouted and flourished. Old trees die and make room for the new shoots. It was determined by these learned wizards that the fate of prophecy as we know it is also doomed to aging, infirmity, and eventual death.»
Richard had had to deal with any number of problems caused by prophecy, but the gloomy expressions around the table were infectious. It almost felt like a healer had come out of a back room to announce that an aging relative was near to passing on.
He thought about all the gifted prophets, devoted to their calling, who had worked all of their lives to contribute to this great body of work that was now withering and dying. He thought about the statue he himself had worked so hard to create and how it made him feel when it was destroyed.
He thought, too, that it might simply be the concept of death itself, in any form, that was so dismal because it reminded him of his own mortality — and of Kahlan's mortality.
He also thought that it might be the best thing that could happen. After all, if people no longer believed that prophecy had foreordained what would become of them, then maybe they would realize that they had to think for themselves and decide what was in their own best interest. Maybe, if unchained from a deterministic mindset, people would realize that it was they themselves who actually controlled their own destiny. If people comprehended what was really at stake, maybe they would come to realize the value of reason in the choices they made, instead of mindlessly just waiting for what was to happen, to happen.
«From what Ann and I have discovered,» Nathan said into the still, stale air of the library, «the branch of prophecy that is vanishing is that which refers to times roughly since Richard was born. That, of course, makes the most sense because temporal souls nourish the active, living tissue of prophecy upon which this prophecy worm would feed. But I was able to determine that it hasn't all simply vanished, yet.»
Zedd nodded. «It's dying back, but from the root, so some of it is still alive. I've found pockets of it alive and well.»
«That's right-especially the portions from the present on into the future. As you suggest, it seems that the scourge has attacked the core of these branches, which began two or three decades back and so far have not extensively eaten their way into future events.
«That leaves sections of this prophetic branch-the branch involving you-that are still alive,» the prophet said as he leaned on his hands toward Richard, «but once it dies, we will then lose even those prophecies, along with the memory of how profoundly important they are.»
Richard glanced from Nathan's grim expression to Ann's equally serious face. He knew they had arrived at last at the heart of their purpose.
«That is why we've come looking for you, Richard Rahl,» Ann said with grave intonation, «before it's too late. We have come about prophecy that so far is still alive and has warned us of the most serious crisis to face us since the great war.»
Richard frowned, already unhappy that prophecy once again seemed about to cause him trouble. «What prophecy?»
Nathan pulled a small book out of a pocket and flipped it open. As he held it in both hands, he fixed Richard with a steady gaze to make sure he looked like he was going to listen carefully.
When Nathan was at last sure he had everyone's attention, he began. « 'In the year of the cicadas, when the champion of sacrifice and suffering, under the banner of both mankind and the Light'»-he glanced up from under his bushy eyebrows."that would be Emperor Jagang —'finally splits his swarm, thus shall be the sign that prophecy has been awakened and the final and deciding battle is upon us. Be cautioned, for all true forks and their derivatives are tangled in this mantic root. Only one trunk branches from this conjoined primal origin. If fuer grissa ost drauka does not lead this final battle, then the world, already standing at the brink of darkness, will fall under that terrible shadow.»
«Dear spirits,» Zedd whispered. «Fuer grissa ost drauka is a cardinal link to a prophecy founding a principal fork. Conjoining it with this prophecy establishes a conjugate bifurcation.»
Nathan arched an eyebrow. «Exactly.»
Richard didn't fully understand what Zedd had said, but he caught the drift. And he didn't need them to tell him who fuer grissa ost drauka, the bringer of death, was; it was him.
«Jagang has split his forces,» Ann said with quiet power as she fixed Richard in her steady gaze. «He brought his army up near to Aydindril, hoping to finish it, but the D'Haran forces, along with the people of the city, made use of winter to escape over the passes to D'Hara and out of Jagang's clutches.»
«I know,» Richard said. «That escape over the passes in winter was by Kahlan's orders. She's the one who told me about it.»
Cara looked up in surprise, apparently intending to dispute his account, but after a glance at Nicci she decided to remain silent — at least for the moment.
«At any rate,» Ann said, sounding annoyed by the interruption, «Jagang, unable to effectively use his vastly superior numbers to break through those heavily defended, very narrow passes, has finally decided to split his forces. Leaving an army to watch the passes, the emperor himself took the main element of his army south, headed all the way back down through the Midlands to skirt around the barrier of mountains and then hook around and make his way up into D'Hara.
«Our forces are headed south, down through D'Hara, to meet them. That was why when we were able to get a message from Verna about the condition of the books of prophecy at the People's Palace in D'Hara; she was able to ride south ahead of our army and go look them over herself.»
«This is the year that the cicadas are returning,» Nicci said, sounding alarmed. «I've seen them.»
«That's right,» Nathan said, still leaning forward on both hands. «That means the chronology is now fixed. The prophecies have all made their connections and have tumbled into place. Events are marked.» In turn, he met the gaze of everyone in the room. «The end is upon us.»
Zedd let out a low whistle.
«More importantly,» Ann said in an authoritative tone, «it means that it is time for Lord Rahl to join the D'Haran forces and lead them in the final battle. Without you there, Richard, prophecy is quite clear; all will be lost. We have come to escort you to your forces, to help insure that you make it. We dare not risk delay; we must leave at once.»
For the first time since they started talking about prophecy, Richard's knees felt weak.
«But I can't,» he said. «I have to find Kahlan.»
It sounded to him like a plea into a gale.
Ann took a deep breath, as if to bite her tongue while she searched for some urgently needed patience, or maybe words that would persuade him and finally settle the matter once and for all. The two Mord-Sith shared a look. Zedd pressed his thin lips tight while he considered. In frustration Nathan tossed the book he was holding on the table and wiped his hand across his face as he planted his left fist on a hip.
Richard didn't know what he could say to them all that would have any chance of making them understand that something profoundly serious was wrong in the world and Kahlan was only a piece of the puzzle-by far the most important piece, but still a part of something much larger. Ever since the morning when she had disappeared, he had argued himself sick about the urgent need to find her and it never seemed to do any good at convincing anyone that he knew what he was talking about. He had no interest in yet again wasting his energy on the same fruitless explanations.
«You what?» Ann said, her displeasure bubbling up to the surface like dross in a cauldron. At that moment, she was very much again the Prelate, a squat woman who somehow managed to seem towering.
«I have to find Kahlan,» Richard repeated.
«I don't know what you're talking about. We simply don't have time for any of this nonsense.» Ann had dismissed his wants, interests, and needs out of hand, to say nothing of what he believed were his rational and important reasons. «We have come to see to it that you get to the D'Haran army immediately. Everyone is waiting on you. Everyone is depending on you. The time has come when you must lead our forces in the final battle that is now rapidly descending upon us.»
«I can't,» Richard said in a quiet but firm voice.
«Prophecy demands it!» Ann shouted.
Richard realized that Ann had changed. Everyone had changed in little ways since Kahlan had disappeared, but Ann had changed in more overt ways. The last time she had come, with the very same purpose, to demand that Richard go with her to lead the war, Kahlan had thrown Ann's journey book in a fire, telling the former Prelate that prophecy was not driving events, but rather Ann was by trying to make people follow prophecy in an effort to make it come true, that she was acting as prophecy's enforcer. Kahlan had shown Ann how she herself, as the Prelate, by being prophecy's handmaiden, might very well have actually been the one who'd brought the world to the brink of cataclysm. Because of Kahlan's words, Ann had done some deep soul-searching that had eventually helped make her more rational, and more understanding of how Richard was the one who had to choose to do what was right.
Now, with the memory of Kahlan gone, everything that had happened with Kahlan was also wiped away. Ann, like everyone else, had reverted to the disposition she'd shown before Kahlan's influence. It made Richard's head hurt, sometimes, just trying to recall exactly what Kahlan had done with everyone that they wouldn't now remember so that he could take that into account when he dealt with them. With some people, like Shota, it had actually in some ways helped him. Shota, for instance, because of losing her memory of Kahlan, hadn't recalled that she told Richard that if he ever returned to Agaden Reach she would kill him. With other people, like Ann, it was proving to make matters much more difficult.
«Kahlan threw your journey book in a fire,» he told her. «She was fed up with you trying to control my life, as am I.»
Ann frowned. «I accidentally dropped my journey book in the fire myself.»
Richard sighed. «I see.» He didn't want to argue because he knew it would do no good. No one in the room believed him. Cara would do whatever he wanted her to do, but she didn't believe him. Nicci didn't believe him, but wanted him to act as he believed he must. Nicci was the one who had actually given him the most encouragement he had gotten since Kahlan had disappeared.
«Richard,» Nathan said in a gentler, more benevolent voice, «this is not some simple little thing. You have been born to prophecy. The world stands at the brink of a great dark age. You hold the key to preventing a slide into that long, terrible night. You are the one prophecy says can save our cause-the cause you yourself believe in. You must do your duty. You can't let us down.»
Richard was sick and tired of being driven by events. He was at his wits end with not understanding what was going on, with always feeling like he was one step behind the rest of the world and two steps behind whatever had happened to Kahlan. He was getting angry that everyone was telling him what to do and no one was interested in what was of paramount importance to him. They didn't even want to let him decide his own fate. They thought prophecy had already decided for him.
It had not.
He needed to find out the truth of what had happened to Kahlan. He needed to find Kahlan, period. He was fed up with wasting time on what prophecy, along with any number of people, thought he ought to be doing. Anyone who was not helping him was, in reality, holding him back from something vitally important.
«I have no responsibility to live up to what anyone else expects of me,» he said to Ann as he picked up the small book Nathan had brought with him.
Ann and Nathan stared in surprise.
He felt Nicci's reassuring hand on the small of his back. She may not believe in his memory of Kahlan, but at least she had helped him see that he had to be true to his principles. She wouldn't allow him to lose by default. She had been a valued friend when he needed one the most.
The only other person he knew who would stand by him in that way, stand up to him in that way, was Kahlan.
He thumbed past all the blank pages in the book Nathan had brought. Richard was curious to see if there was more that might change the picture, if they were only telling him what they wanted him to believe. He also would like to find something-anything-that would help him understand what was going on.
And something was going on. Zedd's explanation of the prophecy worm sounded airtight, but something about it bothered Richard. It explained the missing text in the books of prophecy in a way that suited what these people wanted to believe. It was too convenient and, worse, it was too much of a coincidence.
Coincidence always made Richard suspicious.
Nicci had a good point as well; it seemed just a little too convenient that the body buried down at the Confessors' Palace would have a ribbon with Kahlan's name embroidered on it — Just in case there was any doubt, should someone dig up the body?
After blank page upon blank page, Richard found the writing. It was exactly as Nathan had read it.
In the year of the cicadas, when the champion of sacrifice and suffering, under the banner of both mankind and the Light finally splits his swarm, thus shall be the sign that prophecy has been awakened and the final and deciding battle is upon us. Be cautioned, for all true forks and their derivatives are tangled in this mantic root. Only one trunk branches from this conjoined primal origin. If fuer grissa ost drauka does not lead this final battle, then the world, already standing at the brink of darkness, will fall under that terrible shadow.
There were several things about the passage that puzzled Richard. For one thing, the reference to cicadas. It seemed a lowly creature to be worthy of prophetic mention, to say nothing of such a central role in the —purportedly-most important prophecy in three thousand years. He supposed that it could make sense that it was a key that helped set the chronology, but, from what others had told him, prophecy never went out of its way to set chronology, making it one of prophecy's most difficult issues.
It also troubled him that this prophecy, so distant in so many ways from the other he had read at the Palace of the Prophets, would also refer to him in High D'Haran as fuer grissa ost drauka. He supposed that it could be, as Zedd had suggested, that such a linkage meant it was important.
But the link to the prophecy Richard had seen at the Palace of the Prophets with the reference to fuer grissa ost drauka was strongly connected to something else: the boxes of Orden.
In the old prophecy that named Richard the bringer of death, the word death meant three different things, depending on how it was used: the bringer of the underworld, the world of the dead; the bringer of spirits, spirits of the dead; and the bringer of death, meaning to kill. Each meaning was different, but all three were intended.
The second meaning had to do with how he used the Sword of Truth, and the third simply that he'd had to kill people. But the first meaning involved the boxes of Orden.
He supposed that in the context of the prophecy at hand, the third meaning seemed the obvious, that he had to lead the army and kill the enemy, so calling him fuer grissa ost drauka did make sense. Yet again, things seemed awfully convenient.
All the convenient explanations and coincidences were making Richard more than just a little suspicious. With Kahlan's disappearance involved, he felt that there had to be more to what was going on.
He turned to the page ahead of the passage, and then the one preceding it, checking. They were blank.
«I have a problem with this,» he said, looking up at all the eyes watching him.
«And what would that be?» Ann asked as she folded her arms. She used the same tone of voice she would have if she'd been talking to an inexperienced, untrained, ignorant boy freshly brought to the Palace of the Prophets to be trained in the use of his gift.
«Well, there's nothing around it,» he said. «It's all blank.»
Nathan covered his face with a hand while Ann threw her arms in the air in a gesture of baffled outrage. «Of course not! They've vanished, along with a great deal more. That's what we've just been talking about. That's why this one is so important!»
«But without knowing the context, you can't really say that this one is important, now, can you? To understand any information one must know the context.»
Contrary to Ann and Nathan's agitation, Zedd smiled to himself at lessons taught long ago and remembered.
Nathan looked up. «What does that have to do with this prophecy?»
«Well, for all we know, there might have been mitigating text right before this, or something right after that went on to dismiss this. With the copy missing how are we to know? This prophecy could have been superseded by just about anything.»
Zedd smiled. «The boy has a point.»
«He's not a boy,» Ann growled. «He's a man, and the Lord Rahl, the head of the D'Haran Empire that he himself pulled together to fight the Imperial Order, and he's supposed to lead those forces. All of our lives depend on him doing so.»
As Richard flipped back through the book, he saw writing that he hadn't seen the first time. He paged back to it.
«Here's something else that didn't vanish,» he said.
«What?» Nathan asked with incredulity as he twisted around to look. «There was nothing else. I'm sure of it.»
«Right here,» Richard said, tapping a finger on the words. «It says, 'Here we come.' What could that mean? And why did it not vanish?»
« 'Here we come'?» Nathan's face distorted in a look of confusion. «I never saw that before.»
Richard turned back more pages. «Look. Here it is again. Same thing. 'Here we come.'»
«I could have missed it once, perhaps,» Nathan said, «but there is no way I could have missed a second one. You must be wrong.»
«No, look,» Richard said, turning the book to show the prophet. He went backward through the book, turning blank pages until he came to writing. «Here it is again. A whole page of the same thing written over and over.»
Nathan's jaw hung in speechless astonishment. Nicci peered over Richard's shoulder. Zedd rushed around next to him to see the writing in the book. Even the two Mord-Sith came to have a look.
Richard turned a page forward, to what a moment before had been blank. There, down the page, was the same sentence written over and over and over.
Here we come.
«I watched you turning it back.» Nicci's silken voice carried a clear undertone of disquiet. «I know that page was blank an instant ago.»
Goose bumps prickled up Richard's arms. The hair at the nape of his neck lifted.
He looked up and saw something dark coalescing out of the deep shadows beneath the beam of sunlight coming from the high window at the end of the room.
Too late, he remembered Shota's warning not to read prophecy, that if he did the blood beast would be able to find him.
He reached for his sword.
His sword wasn't there.
CHAPTER 53
With a wail that sounded like the condemned souls of a thousand sinners, tumbling angles and swirls and streaks of darkness materialized out of the darkness itself, like shadows coming to life.
As the tables at the far end of the room were violently upended, the dark tangle exploded through them. Splinters of wood of every size flew through the air.
Tables shattered in succession as the beast born of a clutch of shadows came raging across the room toward Richard.
The sound of popping and splintering wood boomed through the dusty air of the library.
Cara and Rikka both sprang in front of Richard, each with her Agiel in her fist. He knew all too well what would happen should they encounter the beast. The thought of Cara being hurt like that again ignited his rage. Before they could charge toward the dark mass smashing through the heavy library tables, he snatched them both by their long blond braids and with a roar of anger tossed them back.
«Don't get in its way!» he yelled at both Mord-Sith.
Ann and Nathan both cast their arms toward the thing, unleashing magic that made the room shimmer as if seen through the waves of heat over a roaring fire. Richard knew that they were compressing the very air itself in an attempt to drive back the attack. Their efforts had no effect on the knot of shadows that rolled and twisted through solid wood as it came across the room. They all backed away, trying to keep distance between them and the threat.
Richard ducked as a long board-the entire edge of one of the shattered tables-whipped past his head and smashed against a post. One of the lamps broke open, sending flaming oil splashing across the ancient carpets, setting them ablaze. Gray smoke billowed up behind them as they faced the beast charging for Richard.
Zedd unleashed a fiery bolt of lightning that passed right through the center of the dark mass of disorder as if it were not even there, only to hit the bookshelves against the far wall. Books and flaming paper flew up into the air. Great clouds of dust and smoke boiled up as the room filled with the sound of the cacophonous blast.
Terrible wails and keening, like the howls of the doomed through an open doorway down into the depths of the underworld, came from the beast as it came ever onward, crashing through the thick mahogany posts. Lamps spun through the air as they were flung aside, their silver reflectors casting flickering light around the room and creating shadows that gathered into the beast as it grew more dense, and darker yet.
Magic being hastily conjured by Ann and Nathan wasn't visible to Richard, but it seemed to pass right through the beast, as if it were made of nothing more than it appeared, shadows all jumbled together, and yet the knot of darkness crashed through solid wooden tables and posts, splintering them as the thing advanced across the room. Twisting beams squealed and boards shrieked under the stress as another post snapped. The edge of the balcony sagged, then dropped several feet before hanging drunkenly. Another post exploded as it was pushed past its capacity to bend by the onward rush of the dark menace. The edge of the balcony dropped several more feet. Bookshelves teetered on the tilting floor and then toppled, sending an avalanche of books plunging down into the main room.
Amidst all the confusion, destruction, and noise, as he backed across the room, watching the approaching menace, trying to think of how to counter it, Richard found his shirt grabbed at the shoulder. With surprising strength, Nicci rammed him through the open doorway. Tom, standing guard in the hallway, snatched Richard's other arm and helped pull him out of the library as Cara and Rikka followed, guarding his retreat.
In the room, the beast continued onward, smashing anything in its way as it turned toward the doorway, toward Richard.
Ann, Nathan, and Zedd all summoned forces Richard couldn't even see, but he could sense them by the hum in the air and the radiating waves of a queazy feelings it gave him in the pit of his stomach. He could feel the air being buffeted as magic was conjured and cast.
None of it did any good. They might as well have been attacking shadows.
Nicci turned back to the room from the doorway and lifted a fist toward the snarl of shadows tumbling toward her. The sudden explosion made everyone wince and duck as she unleased a bolt of power that was both blindingly bright and icy dark laced together into one terrible blast. The discharge of thundering power rocked the Keep, shaking the floor and rising dust from every crack and corner. The twisting rope of destruction exploded through the beast, spraying apart. Showers of sparks rained down as bookshelves flew asunder. Wood, debris, and hundreds of books along with sheafs of paper were blasted into the air, leaving fluttering pages to drift through the pandemonium. It looked like a blizzard of paper had been turned loose in the room.
The deafening discharge of power from Nicci that rocked the Keep also sliced right through the stone walls like flaming pitch through paper. Through the jagged slashes cut in solid stone, ribbons of dusty bluish sunlight suddenly penetrated into the room. The contrast of harsh light against the otherwise dark room made it all the harder to see the murky collection of shade and shadow as it moved through the confusion of destruction.
Everyone covered their ears as the terrible wail that sounded like lost souls increased to a terrifying pitch, as if the power Nicci had set upon it had reached down into the underworld to sear them in their dark sanctuary.
While it didn't look to have done much to stop the shadowy beast, it did seem to get its attention. Nothing else had.
Nicci ran out through the door and shoved Richard, starting him moving down the hallway. He was reluctant to leave Zedd to such a threat, but Richard knew that the thing was after him and not his grandfather. Zedd would be safer if Richard ran. He didn't think, though, that running was necessarily the solution to his safety.
«Stay out of its way,» Richard told Tom. «It will rip you to shreds. That goes for you two as well,» he said to Cara and Rikka as they shepherded him down the hall.
«We understand, Lord Rahl,» Cara said.
«How do we kill it?» Tom asked as they ran sideways down the hall, keeping a wary eye toward the library.
«You can't,» Nicci answered. «It's already dead.»
«Oh great,» he muttered as he turned back to help Nicci, Cara, and Rikka make sure that Richard kept moving. Richard didn't really think that he needed any physical encouragement. The wails of the dead were enough to urge him to run.
Flashes of light along with angry shrieks came from the doorway as those in the room still fought to destroy, or at least contain, what looked like nothing so much as living shadows. Richard knew that they were wasting their time. It was made in part with Subtractive Magic and they had no weapon against that. The thing had already proven that much to them, but they were probably trying to distract it so as to give Richard time to get away. So far, it hadn't proven itself susceptible to such tactics. Shota had told him as much.
At an intersection, Richard took the paneled hall to the right. The rest of them followed. At intervals they passed open areas with chairs and couches and dark lamps. Such spots must have once hosted warm conversation and companionship.
As they turned and ran down a wider corridor with tan, troweled plaster walls and golden oak floors, a wall ahead exploded. Dust and debris billowed toward them. Richard slid to a stop on the polished wood floor and reversed direction as the jumble of shadows emerged from the white cloud of dust. Everyone else had previously pushed him on ahead, so that now, having had to turn around, he was at the rear as the beast rapidly closed the distance.
The dark snarl looked like it had collected yet more random shadows along the way-small angled shadows, broad leafy shade, inky dark corners, dark haze of dusk-and crumbled them all together like wadding up paper. The way the shadows folded back on themselves made swirling black shapes that constantly eddied over and under and through one another. It was dizzying to watch, even for the brief glimpses he took as he ran.
And yet, it was so insubstantial that when he glanced over his shoulder he could see light from windows far off down the hall right through the thing. Even so, as they raced around corners, the beast would sometimes go wide and graze the walls, and when it did, it ripped apart the wood, or plaster, or stone as easily as a bull going through bramble.
Richard had no idea how to fight a cluster of crumbled shadows that could tear through solid stone without even slowing.
He recalled Victor's men in the woods, so violently ripped to shreds in mere moments. He wondered if this was the thing that had slashed through them, if this was the fate they faced that terrible morning when the blood beast came looking for Richard.
Two wizards and two sorceresses had now tried to stop Jagang's conjured beast without any practical effect. And Nicci was more than a mere sorceress. She had been taught the sinister art of how to use Subtractive Magic in exchange for dark oaths that Richard feared to think about. Even that hadn't stopped the beast, although it did seem to get a reaction.
Nicci stopped and turned to the dusky collection of shadows careening down the paneled oak halls behind them. She looked like she intended to make a stand. As he caught up with her, Richard, without slowing, planted his shoulder into her middle, knocking the wind from her as he lifted her clear of the floor, carrying her over his shoulder like a sack of grain as he ran.
The halls all around lit in a blinding flash of white light as Nicci —having quickly recovered her breath-cast magic behind even as she was being carted down the hall. The floor shook, nearly knocking Richard from his feet as he ran. Blackness, like the flash of light, caught them and swept past for an instant as Nicci unleashed terrible power at the thing chasing them. By the haunting keening that echoed through the halls, Richard thought that Nicci's effort must have done something.
She seized his shirt in both fists as she squirmed. «Let me down, Richard! Let me run myself! I'm only slowing you down and it's catching up with us! Hurry!»
Richard immediately spun her around in his right arm so that she would be facing the right way. As he dropped her to the ground he kept his arm around her waist until he was sure she had her balance and was up to speed with the rest of them.
With Nicci beside him and Tom, Cara, and Rikka right in front of him, they all raced down halls without knowing where they were going. They switched randomly from right turns to left, going past some intersections while taking others. He could hear the beast crashing after them. Sometimes it followed down the halls and corridors, sometimes, when they went around a corner, it clipped though the walls, trying to close the distance, trying to get to him. Stone, mortar, and wood seemed to make no difference to the thing as it broke through each with equal ease. He knew that a thing conjured by Sisters of the Dark and tied to the underworld would have abilities that no ordinary creature would possess, so he had no idea what the limits of it might be.
As he ran, he yelled to the two Mord-Sith and Tom. «You three go straight! Try to get the thing to follow you!»
They looked back as they ran and nodded to his orders.
«That thing isn't going to follow them,» Nicci said in a low voice as she leaned toward him as best she could at a full run.
«I know. I have an idea. Stay with me-I'm going to take those stairs up ahead.»
At a stairwell, as the three in front shot past it, Richard hooked a hand on the black stone sphere atop the granite newel post, spinning himself around it and to the right. Nicci did the same and they both shot down the stairs at full speed. The beast cut the corner, crashing through the post, sending granite fragments riccocheting off the walls and the sphere bouncing down the hall. Cara, Rikka, and Tom, having already passed the stairs, slid to a stop on the polished marble floor. They were trapped above the beast. They immediately followed it down the stairs.
Richard and Nicci bounded down the steps three or four at a time. He could hear the otherworldly howl of the thing right behind him. It felt as if it were touching the hair at the back of his neck-it was that close.
At the bottom of the stairs, Richard cut to the right, following a stone passageway. The beast went wide, crashing into a tan, polished marble wall. The stone slab shattered with a loud bang but the beast rushed onward. At the first stairwell Richard came to he raced down it, then took the second and third flight down as well to the bottom.
The broad hallway running straight off from the stairs had carpets at regular intervals, making it more difficult to keep their footing. The walls had beaded wainscoting beneath smooth plaster. Brackets spaced down the passageway, centered above each carpet held what looked like glass globes that brightened as Richard raced toward each one in turn. He ran as fast as he could, Nicci at his side, the shadows tumbling onward like death itself right on their heels.
At spiral iron stairs, Richard jumped sidesaddle onto the railing and slid at breakneck speed in a corkscrew course down into the darkness. Right with him, Nicci threw one arm around his neck for balance and did the same. Together they plummeted downward, gaining some precious distance on their pursuer.
At the bottom the railing spilled them out onto a cold, tiled floor. They both tumbled across the smooth green tiles and slid to a sprawling stop. Richard scrambled to his feet and snatched one of the glowing spheres from a bracket.
«Come on, hurry,» he said as Nicci did the same.
They raced through endless rooms and passageways, taking as wild a route as he could in an effort to shake their hunter. Occasionally they gained a precious few paces. At other times, especially in the halls, the thing regained the distance and inched ever closer. Some of the rooms were cozy paneled suites. The beast seemed to suck the shadows right out of the cold, dark fireplaces as it passed them. The globes they carried cast a warm glow across intricately woven carpets and richly upholstered chairs. Bookcases held leather volumes. Richard accidentally knocked over a bookstand, but kept his balance and kept running.
After charging down yet more flights of stairs, some broad with landings and others nothing more than narrow shafts that seemed bottomless, the rooms began to become less grand. Some of the halls were tiled on all sides with odd patterns. One of the chambers was immense and empty, with fat round stone pillars spaced evenly throughout. The lights they carried were not enough to penetrate the farthest reaches. Occasionally, the passages were little more than shafts chiseled through solid rock.
Other rooms and halls were protected with shields that Richard deliberately charged through. He didn't want Cara, Rikka, and Tom coming near the thing chasing him. He didn't want them meeting the same fate as Victor's men. He knew that Cara would be furious at him when she found herself blocked by shields. He hoped he lived to hear her lecture.
They emerged from what appeared as they'd run through it to be a storage room for construction material, with burlap bags and stone stacked to each side. Richard recognized the material from his time in Altur'Rang at forced labor working on Emperor Jagang's palace. Now Jagang's beast was hunting him down.
They emerged on the far side of the storage room into a long, corridor with a slate floor. The smooth, stone block walls rose uninterrupted to a lofty ceiling that had to be at least a hundred and fifty feet overhead, creating a narrow, towering vertical slash through the interior of the Keep. Down at the bottom of that soaring passageway, Richard felt like an ant.
He immediately cut to the right down the immense corridor. The booming drumbeat of their boots echoed all around him as he ran with all his strength. He soon had to slow a bit for Nicci. They were both near the end of their endurance. The wail of a thousand dead souls tumbled ever onward, never seeming to tire.
As he ran, Richard couldn't even see the end of the tall passageway disappearing into the distance. That this was just one corridor of many gave him a profound sense of the enormity of the Keep.
Arriving at an intersecting passage to the left, Richard turned and ran down it a short distance to where they encountered an iron stairwell. Trying to catch his breath, he glanced back and saw the knot of shadows round the corner. Pushing Nicci ahead of him, they bounded down the stairs together.
At the bottom they found themselves in a small, square room that was little more than an intersection of stone passageways going off in three directions. Richard held the glowing sphere out, taking a quick glance in each passageway. He could see nothing down two of them. In the one to the right he thought he saw something glimmering. He'd been down in the Keep before and had encountered strange places and one of those places was what he needed now.
Together he and Nicci raced down the passageway. As he'd thought, it wasn't very long, just long enough to take them under the colossal corridor and then a little farther to where it opened into a kind of entry area with walls covered in small fragments of colored glass meticulously arranged into elaborate geometric designs. The light from the two glowing spheres glinted off the small glass pieces to send thousands of colored reflections sparkling and shimmering around the room. There was only one other opening, off against a far wall.
Richard staggered to a halt. The strange glittering room made his skin crawl with a sensation much like spiderwebs brushing against him. Nicci turned her head away, swiping at her face as if to get something off her. He knew that such a sensation was a part of a broader warning to stay away.
Small pillars made of polished, gold-flecked stone stood to each side of the distant opening holding up an entablature. The passageway beyond the pillars, not much taller than Richard, appeared to be roughly square and made of simple stone blocks that disappeared off into darkness. It seemed an elaborate and impressive entry for such a plain hallway down in the bowels of the place.
Richard hoped he was right about the reason.
As they crossed the entry room and approached the opening, the area before the pillars began to give off a faint reddish glow. The air itself began to hum in a very troubling way.
Nicci, her hair lifting out from her head as if she were about to be struck by lightning, seized his arm, pulling him back. «That's a shield.»
«I know,» Richard said as he dragged her by her grip on his arm.
«Richard, you can't. It's not just an ordinary shield-not just Additive. It's laced with Subtractive Magic. Such shields are deadly, this one especially so.»
He looked back the way they'd come and saw the shadowy beast tumbling down the passageway toward them. «I know, I've been through places like this before.»
He hoped he was right that this particular shield was like the ones he'd been through. He needed the kind that he'd encountered before, the kind that guarded the most restricted areas. If it was anything less, or one that was actually more powerful or more restrictive than the ones he'd seen before, then they were going to be in a great deal of trouble.
The only way out of the room they were in was back through the passage with the beast that was coming for them, or onward through the shield.
«Let's go. hurry.»
Nicci's chest heaved as she struggled to catch her breath. «Richard, we can't go through there. That shield will take the flesh right off our bones.»
«I'm telling you, I've done it before. You can command Subtractive Magic, so you can make it through as well.» He started running toward the passage. «Besides, if we don't, we're dead anyway. It's our only chance.»
With a growl of surrender, she ran along with him through the shower of glittering reflections from the glass mosaics that covered the walls of the room. «You'd better be right about this.»
He grabbed her hand and held it tight, just in case being born with the Subtractive side was necessary. Nicci had not been born with it, but had acquired the use of it. He didn't know a great deal about magic, but from what he'd learned, there was a great gulf between being born with it and simply being able to use it. He had helped others, without the gift, through shields before, so between her abilities, and his hold of her, he figured he could get her through-if, that was, he could make it through himself.
The air all around them turned as red as a crimson fog. Without pause, Richard charged right though the doorway, pulling Nicci along with him.
The sudden avalanche of pressure felt like it would crush them. Nicci gasped.
Richard had to force himself against that pressure in order to advance. At the razor edge of the plane along the opening surrounded by polished stone pillars, heat seared across his flesh. It was so intense that for an instant he thought he'd made a huge mistake, that Nicci had been right, and that the shield would burn the flesh right off his bones.
Even as he flinched in reaction to the unexpected burning sensation, his momentum carried him through the doorway. He was somewhat surprised not only to find himself alive and well and not at all harmed, but that the passageway was not at all what it appeared from the other side. When he'd looked through the opening before, it looked like a simple stone block passage. Once past the pillars, it was polished stone that seemed to shimmer with a rippling silver surface that made it appear three-dimensional.
As the tables at the far end of the room were violently upended, the dark tangle exploded through them. Splinters of wood of every size flew through the air.
Tables shattered in succession as the beast born of a clutch of shadows came raging across the room toward Richard.
The sound of popping and splintering wood boomed through the dusty air of the library.
Cara and Rikka both sprang in front of Richard, each with her Agiel in her fist. He knew all too well what would happen should they encounter the beast. The thought of Cara being hurt like that again ignited his rage. Before they could charge toward the dark mass smashing through the heavy library tables, he snatched them both by their long blond braids and with a roar of anger tossed them back.
«Don't get in its way!» he yelled at both Mord-Sith.
Ann and Nathan both cast their arms toward the thing, unleashing magic that made the room shimmer as if seen through the waves of heat over a roaring fire. Richard knew that they were compressing the very air itself in an attempt to drive back the attack. Their efforts had no effect on the knot of shadows that rolled and twisted through solid wood as it came across the room. They all backed away, trying to keep distance between them and the threat.
Richard ducked as a long board-the entire edge of one of the shattered tables-whipped past his head and smashed against a post. One of the lamps broke open, sending flaming oil splashing across the ancient carpets, setting them ablaze. Gray smoke billowed up behind them as they faced the beast charging for Richard.
Zedd unleashed a fiery bolt of lightning that passed right through the center of the dark mass of disorder as if it were not even there, only to hit the bookshelves against the far wall. Books and flaming paper flew up into the air. Great clouds of dust and smoke boiled up as the room filled with the sound of the cacophonous blast.
Terrible wails and keening, like the howls of the doomed through an open doorway down into the depths of the underworld, came from the beast as it came ever onward, crashing through the thick mahogany posts. Lamps spun through the air as they were flung aside, their silver reflectors casting flickering light around the room and creating shadows that gathered into the beast as it grew more dense, and darker yet.
Magic being hastily conjured by Ann and Nathan wasn't visible to Richard, but it seemed to pass right through the beast, as if it were made of nothing more than it appeared, shadows all jumbled together, and yet the knot of darkness crashed through solid wooden tables and posts, splintering them as the thing advanced across the room. Twisting beams squealed and boards shrieked under the stress as another post snapped. The edge of the balcony sagged, then dropped several feet before hanging drunkenly. Another post exploded as it was pushed past its capacity to bend by the onward rush of the dark menace. The edge of the balcony dropped several more feet. Bookshelves teetered on the tilting floor and then toppled, sending an avalanche of books plunging down into the main room.
Amidst all the confusion, destruction, and noise, as he backed across the room, watching the approaching menace, trying to think of how to counter it, Richard found his shirt grabbed at the shoulder. With surprising strength, Nicci rammed him through the open doorway. Tom, standing guard in the hallway, snatched Richard's other arm and helped pull him out of the library as Cara and Rikka followed, guarding his retreat.
In the room, the beast continued onward, smashing anything in its way as it turned toward the doorway, toward Richard.
Ann, Nathan, and Zedd all summoned forces Richard couldn't even see, but he could sense them by the hum in the air and the radiating waves of a queazy feelings it gave him in the pit of his stomach. He could feel the air being buffeted as magic was conjured and cast.
None of it did any good. They might as well have been attacking shadows.
Nicci turned back to the room from the doorway and lifted a fist toward the snarl of shadows tumbling toward her. The sudden explosion made everyone wince and duck as she unleased a bolt of power that was both blindingly bright and icy dark laced together into one terrible blast. The discharge of thundering power rocked the Keep, shaking the floor and rising dust from every crack and corner. The twisting rope of destruction exploded through the beast, spraying apart. Showers of sparks rained down as bookshelves flew asunder. Wood, debris, and hundreds of books along with sheafs of paper were blasted into the air, leaving fluttering pages to drift through the pandemonium. It looked like a blizzard of paper had been turned loose in the room.
The deafening discharge of power from Nicci that rocked the Keep also sliced right through the stone walls like flaming pitch through paper. Through the jagged slashes cut in solid stone, ribbons of dusty bluish sunlight suddenly penetrated into the room. The contrast of harsh light against the otherwise dark room made it all the harder to see the murky collection of shade and shadow as it moved through the confusion of destruction.
Everyone covered their ears as the terrible wail that sounded like lost souls increased to a terrifying pitch, as if the power Nicci had set upon it had reached down into the underworld to sear them in their dark sanctuary.
While it didn't look to have done much to stop the shadowy beast, it did seem to get its attention. Nothing else had.
Nicci ran out through the door and shoved Richard, starting him moving down the hallway. He was reluctant to leave Zedd to such a threat, but Richard knew that the thing was after him and not his grandfather. Zedd would be safer if Richard ran. He didn't think, though, that running was necessarily the solution to his safety.
«Stay out of its way,» Richard told Tom. «It will rip you to shreds. That goes for you two as well,» he said to Cara and Rikka as they shepherded him down the hall.
«We understand, Lord Rahl,» Cara said.
«How do we kill it?» Tom asked as they ran sideways down the hall, keeping a wary eye toward the library.
«You can't,» Nicci answered. «It's already dead.»
«Oh great,» he muttered as he turned back to help Nicci, Cara, and Rikka make sure that Richard kept moving. Richard didn't really think that he needed any physical encouragement. The wails of the dead were enough to urge him to run.
Flashes of light along with angry shrieks came from the doorway as those in the room still fought to destroy, or at least contain, what looked like nothing so much as living shadows. Richard knew that they were wasting their time. It was made in part with Subtractive Magic and they had no weapon against that. The thing had already proven that much to them, but they were probably trying to distract it so as to give Richard time to get away. So far, it hadn't proven itself susceptible to such tactics. Shota had told him as much.
At an intersection, Richard took the paneled hall to the right. The rest of them followed. At intervals they passed open areas with chairs and couches and dark lamps. Such spots must have once hosted warm conversation and companionship.
As they turned and ran down a wider corridor with tan, troweled plaster walls and golden oak floors, a wall ahead exploded. Dust and debris billowed toward them. Richard slid to a stop on the polished wood floor and reversed direction as the jumble of shadows emerged from the white cloud of dust. Everyone else had previously pushed him on ahead, so that now, having had to turn around, he was at the rear as the beast rapidly closed the distance.
The dark snarl looked like it had collected yet more random shadows along the way-small angled shadows, broad leafy shade, inky dark corners, dark haze of dusk-and crumbled them all together like wadding up paper. The way the shadows folded back on themselves made swirling black shapes that constantly eddied over and under and through one another. It was dizzying to watch, even for the brief glimpses he took as he ran.
And yet, it was so insubstantial that when he glanced over his shoulder he could see light from windows far off down the hall right through the thing. Even so, as they raced around corners, the beast would sometimes go wide and graze the walls, and when it did, it ripped apart the wood, or plaster, or stone as easily as a bull going through bramble.
Richard had no idea how to fight a cluster of crumbled shadows that could tear through solid stone without even slowing.
He recalled Victor's men in the woods, so violently ripped to shreds in mere moments. He wondered if this was the thing that had slashed through them, if this was the fate they faced that terrible morning when the blood beast came looking for Richard.
Two wizards and two sorceresses had now tried to stop Jagang's conjured beast without any practical effect. And Nicci was more than a mere sorceress. She had been taught the sinister art of how to use Subtractive Magic in exchange for dark oaths that Richard feared to think about. Even that hadn't stopped the beast, although it did seem to get a reaction.
Nicci stopped and turned to the dusky collection of shadows careening down the paneled oak halls behind them. She looked like she intended to make a stand. As he caught up with her, Richard, without slowing, planted his shoulder into her middle, knocking the wind from her as he lifted her clear of the floor, carrying her over his shoulder like a sack of grain as he ran.
The halls all around lit in a blinding flash of white light as Nicci —having quickly recovered her breath-cast magic behind even as she was being carted down the hall. The floor shook, nearly knocking Richard from his feet as he ran. Blackness, like the flash of light, caught them and swept past for an instant as Nicci unleashed terrible power at the thing chasing them. By the haunting keening that echoed through the halls, Richard thought that Nicci's effort must have done something.
She seized his shirt in both fists as she squirmed. «Let me down, Richard! Let me run myself! I'm only slowing you down and it's catching up with us! Hurry!»
Richard immediately spun her around in his right arm so that she would be facing the right way. As he dropped her to the ground he kept his arm around her waist until he was sure she had her balance and was up to speed with the rest of them.
With Nicci beside him and Tom, Cara, and Rikka right in front of him, they all raced down halls without knowing where they were going. They switched randomly from right turns to left, going past some intersections while taking others. He could hear the beast crashing after them. Sometimes it followed down the halls and corridors, sometimes, when they went around a corner, it clipped though the walls, trying to close the distance, trying to get to him. Stone, mortar, and wood seemed to make no difference to the thing as it broke through each with equal ease. He knew that a thing conjured by Sisters of the Dark and tied to the underworld would have abilities that no ordinary creature would possess, so he had no idea what the limits of it might be.
As he ran, he yelled to the two Mord-Sith and Tom. «You three go straight! Try to get the thing to follow you!»
They looked back as they ran and nodded to his orders.
«That thing isn't going to follow them,» Nicci said in a low voice as she leaned toward him as best she could at a full run.
«I know. I have an idea. Stay with me-I'm going to take those stairs up ahead.»
At a stairwell, as the three in front shot past it, Richard hooked a hand on the black stone sphere atop the granite newel post, spinning himself around it and to the right. Nicci did the same and they both shot down the stairs at full speed. The beast cut the corner, crashing through the post, sending granite fragments riccocheting off the walls and the sphere bouncing down the hall. Cara, Rikka, and Tom, having already passed the stairs, slid to a stop on the polished marble floor. They were trapped above the beast. They immediately followed it down the stairs.
Richard and Nicci bounded down the steps three or four at a time. He could hear the otherworldly howl of the thing right behind him. It felt as if it were touching the hair at the back of his neck-it was that close.
At the bottom of the stairs, Richard cut to the right, following a stone passageway. The beast went wide, crashing into a tan, polished marble wall. The stone slab shattered with a loud bang but the beast rushed onward. At the first stairwell Richard came to he raced down it, then took the second and third flight down as well to the bottom.
The broad hallway running straight off from the stairs had carpets at regular intervals, making it more difficult to keep their footing. The walls had beaded wainscoting beneath smooth plaster. Brackets spaced down the passageway, centered above each carpet held what looked like glass globes that brightened as Richard raced toward each one in turn. He ran as fast as he could, Nicci at his side, the shadows tumbling onward like death itself right on their heels.
At spiral iron stairs, Richard jumped sidesaddle onto the railing and slid at breakneck speed in a corkscrew course down into the darkness. Right with him, Nicci threw one arm around his neck for balance and did the same. Together they plummeted downward, gaining some precious distance on their pursuer.
At the bottom the railing spilled them out onto a cold, tiled floor. They both tumbled across the smooth green tiles and slid to a sprawling stop. Richard scrambled to his feet and snatched one of the glowing spheres from a bracket.
«Come on, hurry,» he said as Nicci did the same.
They raced through endless rooms and passageways, taking as wild a route as he could in an effort to shake their hunter. Occasionally they gained a precious few paces. At other times, especially in the halls, the thing regained the distance and inched ever closer. Some of the rooms were cozy paneled suites. The beast seemed to suck the shadows right out of the cold, dark fireplaces as it passed them. The globes they carried cast a warm glow across intricately woven carpets and richly upholstered chairs. Bookcases held leather volumes. Richard accidentally knocked over a bookstand, but kept his balance and kept running.
After charging down yet more flights of stairs, some broad with landings and others nothing more than narrow shafts that seemed bottomless, the rooms began to become less grand. Some of the halls were tiled on all sides with odd patterns. One of the chambers was immense and empty, with fat round stone pillars spaced evenly throughout. The lights they carried were not enough to penetrate the farthest reaches. Occasionally, the passages were little more than shafts chiseled through solid rock.
Other rooms and halls were protected with shields that Richard deliberately charged through. He didn't want Cara, Rikka, and Tom coming near the thing chasing him. He didn't want them meeting the same fate as Victor's men. He knew that Cara would be furious at him when she found herself blocked by shields. He hoped he lived to hear her lecture.
They emerged from what appeared as they'd run through it to be a storage room for construction material, with burlap bags and stone stacked to each side. Richard recognized the material from his time in Altur'Rang at forced labor working on Emperor Jagang's palace. Now Jagang's beast was hunting him down.
They emerged on the far side of the storage room into a long, corridor with a slate floor. The smooth, stone block walls rose uninterrupted to a lofty ceiling that had to be at least a hundred and fifty feet overhead, creating a narrow, towering vertical slash through the interior of the Keep. Down at the bottom of that soaring passageway, Richard felt like an ant.
He immediately cut to the right down the immense corridor. The booming drumbeat of their boots echoed all around him as he ran with all his strength. He soon had to slow a bit for Nicci. They were both near the end of their endurance. The wail of a thousand dead souls tumbled ever onward, never seeming to tire.
As he ran, Richard couldn't even see the end of the tall passageway disappearing into the distance. That this was just one corridor of many gave him a profound sense of the enormity of the Keep.
Arriving at an intersecting passage to the left, Richard turned and ran down it a short distance to where they encountered an iron stairwell. Trying to catch his breath, he glanced back and saw the knot of shadows round the corner. Pushing Nicci ahead of him, they bounded down the stairs together.
At the bottom they found themselves in a small, square room that was little more than an intersection of stone passageways going off in three directions. Richard held the glowing sphere out, taking a quick glance in each passageway. He could see nothing down two of them. In the one to the right he thought he saw something glimmering. He'd been down in the Keep before and had encountered strange places and one of those places was what he needed now.
Together he and Nicci raced down the passageway. As he'd thought, it wasn't very long, just long enough to take them under the colossal corridor and then a little farther to where it opened into a kind of entry area with walls covered in small fragments of colored glass meticulously arranged into elaborate geometric designs. The light from the two glowing spheres glinted off the small glass pieces to send thousands of colored reflections sparkling and shimmering around the room. There was only one other opening, off against a far wall.
Richard staggered to a halt. The strange glittering room made his skin crawl with a sensation much like spiderwebs brushing against him. Nicci turned her head away, swiping at her face as if to get something off her. He knew that such a sensation was a part of a broader warning to stay away.
Small pillars made of polished, gold-flecked stone stood to each side of the distant opening holding up an entablature. The passageway beyond the pillars, not much taller than Richard, appeared to be roughly square and made of simple stone blocks that disappeared off into darkness. It seemed an elaborate and impressive entry for such a plain hallway down in the bowels of the place.
Richard hoped he was right about the reason.
As they crossed the entry room and approached the opening, the area before the pillars began to give off a faint reddish glow. The air itself began to hum in a very troubling way.
Nicci, her hair lifting out from her head as if she were about to be struck by lightning, seized his arm, pulling him back. «That's a shield.»
«I know,» Richard said as he dragged her by her grip on his arm.
«Richard, you can't. It's not just an ordinary shield-not just Additive. It's laced with Subtractive Magic. Such shields are deadly, this one especially so.»
He looked back the way they'd come and saw the shadowy beast tumbling down the passageway toward them. «I know, I've been through places like this before.»
He hoped he was right that this particular shield was like the ones he'd been through. He needed the kind that he'd encountered before, the kind that guarded the most restricted areas. If it was anything less, or one that was actually more powerful or more restrictive than the ones he'd seen before, then they were going to be in a great deal of trouble.
The only way out of the room they were in was back through the passage with the beast that was coming for them, or onward through the shield.
«Let's go. hurry.»
Nicci's chest heaved as she struggled to catch her breath. «Richard, we can't go through there. That shield will take the flesh right off our bones.»
«I'm telling you, I've done it before. You can command Subtractive Magic, so you can make it through as well.» He started running toward the passage. «Besides, if we don't, we're dead anyway. It's our only chance.»
With a growl of surrender, she ran along with him through the shower of glittering reflections from the glass mosaics that covered the walls of the room. «You'd better be right about this.»
He grabbed her hand and held it tight, just in case being born with the Subtractive side was necessary. Nicci had not been born with it, but had acquired the use of it. He didn't know a great deal about magic, but from what he'd learned, there was a great gulf between being born with it and simply being able to use it. He had helped others, without the gift, through shields before, so between her abilities, and his hold of her, he figured he could get her through-if, that was, he could make it through himself.
The air all around them turned as red as a crimson fog. Without pause, Richard charged right though the doorway, pulling Nicci along with him.
The sudden avalanche of pressure felt like it would crush them. Nicci gasped.
Richard had to force himself against that pressure in order to advance. At the razor edge of the plane along the opening surrounded by polished stone pillars, heat seared across his flesh. It was so intense that for an instant he thought he'd made a huge mistake, that Nicci had been right, and that the shield would burn the flesh right off his bones.
Even as he flinched in reaction to the unexpected burning sensation, his momentum carried him through the doorway. He was somewhat surprised not only to find himself alive and well and not at all harmed, but that the passageway was not at all what it appeared from the other side. When he'd looked through the opening before, it looked like a simple stone block passage. Once past the pillars, it was polished stone that seemed to shimmer with a rippling silver surface that made it appear three-dimensional.