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steep angle. Feeling the walls all around to find places to grab, he started
the difficult climb. In places he had to wedge his back against one wall and
use his feet against the opposite wall to brace himself while grappling for
any ledge or crack in the rock he could find to help pull himself up. He had
to balance his pack in his lap as he went, and keep his sword from getting
wedged. It was slow going.
Richard finally reached the high table where the rock from above had
first come down. The hollow left under the mountain of rock was basically
horizontal, rather than vertical, as it had been. Rock rested along the edge
of most of the shelf, but there was one place with ample room for them to
make it through, over the edge and then in under the slab above them. Once
up onto the flat, he leaned over as far as he could, extending a hand down
to help Kahlan.
He heard the grunts of effort from below Kahlan as the rest of the
small company worked their way up the precipitous passage.
From his place atop the table of rock, Richard could finally see light
ahead and light above. He had scouted the route and knew that they were
close to being out the other side, but first they had to make it across the
shelf of rock where the slab left little room above them. It was
uncomfortably confining.
Richard didn't like such places. He knew, though, that there was no
other way through. This was the place he worried most about. Tight as it
was, it was fortunately close to the end.
"We have to crawl on our bellies from here," he told Kahlan. "Hold my
ankle. Have everyone behind do the same."
Kahlan peered ahead toward the light coming from the opening. The glare
of that light made it difficult to see to the sides. "Richard, it doesn't
look big enough. It's just a crack."
Richard pushed his pack out onto the rock. "There's a way. We'll be out
soon."
Kahlan let out a deep breath. "All right. The sooner the better."
"Listen to me," he called back into the darkness. "We're almost out."
"If you make us walk through any more rotting animals, I'll clobber
you," Jennsen called up to him. Everyone laughed.
"No more of that," Richard said. "But there is a difficult spot ahead.
I've been through it, so I know we can all make it. But you have to listen
to me and do as I say. Crawl on your stomach, pushing your pack ahead of
you. Hold the ankle of the person in front of you. That way you'll all
follow in the right place.
"You'll see the light ahead of you. You can't go toward the light. That
isn't the way out. The ceiling drops down too low and the slope of the rock
starts pitching down to the left. If you slip down in there it gets even
tighter; you'll not be able to get out. We have to go around the low place
in the ceiling. We have to go around on the right side, where it's dark, but
not as low. Does everyone understand?"
Agreement echoed up from the darkness.
"Richard," Jennsen called in a small voice, "I don't like being in
here. I want out."
Her voice carried a thread of panic.
"I don't either," he told her. "But I've been through and out the other
side. I made it through and back. You'll be fine. Just follow me and you
won't have a problem."
Her voice drifted up to him from the darkness. "I want to go back."
Richard couldn't let her go back. The ledges, where they were exposed
to the races, were too dangerous.
"Here," Kahlan told her, "you come ahead of me. Take hold of Richard's
ankle and you'll be out before the rest of us."
"I'll see that Betty watches you go through and follows," Tom offered.
That seemed to break the impasse. Jennsen moved up to the ledge and
handed her pack up. Richard, lying on his stomach in the low slit of the
shelf, took her hand to help her up.
When she saw in the light how low and tight it was, that Richard had to
lie on his stomach, she started to tremble. When Richard helped pull her up,
and her face came up close to him, he could see her tears in the dim light.
Her wide blue eyes took in the way ahead, how low it was.
Please, Richard, I'm afraid. I don't want to go in under there."
He nodded. "I know, but it's not far. I won't let you stay in here.
I'll see that you get out." He cupped a hand to the side of her face. "I
promise."
"How do I know you'll keep your promise?"
Richard smiled. "Wizards always keep their promises."
"You said you don't know much about being a wizard."
"But I know how to keep promises."
She at last agreed and let him help her the rest of the way up. When he
pulled her all the way up onto the shelf of the mountainside, and she
actually felt how the roof of rock didn't allow her any room to get up and
that she had to lie flat just to fit, and worse, that the roof of rock was
only scant inches above her back, she started to shiver with terror.
"I know how you feel," he told her. "I do, Jennsen. I hate this, too,
but we have no choice. It's not dangerous if you just follow me through the
place where there's room. Just follow me and we'll be out before you know
it."
"What if it comes down and crushes us? Or what if it comes down just
enough to pin us so we can't move or breathe?"
"It won't," he insisted. "It's been here for ages. It isn't going to
come down. It's not."
She nodded but he didn't know if she really heard him. She began to
whimper as he turned himself around so he could lead her out.
"Take my ankle," he called back to her. "Here, push your pack up to me
and I'll take care of it for you. Then you'll only have to worry about
holding on to my ankle and following behind."
"What if it gets too tight and I can't breathe? Richard, what if I
can't breathe?"
Richard kept his voice calm and confident. "I'm bigger than you, so if
I fit, you will."
She only nodded as she shivered. He extended his hand back and had to
tell her again to pass her pack forward before she did as he instructed.
Once he had her pack, he tied the straps to his and pushed them both on
ahead. She seized his ankle as if it were the only thing keeping her from
falling into the arms of the Keeper of the underworld.
He didn't complain, though, about how hard she held him; he knew her
fear.
Richard pushed the packs out ahead and started inching his way forward.
He tried not to think about the rough ceiling of rock only a hand-width
above his back. He knew it would become ftarrower before they got out. The
shelf of rock sloped upward to the right slightly, into the dark. The light
was to the left, and down.
It looked like the easiest way out was to go straight toward the
opening. It wasn't far. They had to go, instead, up into the darkness and
around the narrowing of the cleft in order to get around to a place where
they could fit through. Forcing himself to go up, into the dark where it
felt tighter and more closed in, rather than toward the light of the
opening, felt wrong, but he had already scouted the route and he knew that
his feelings were wrong about this.
As he moved deeper into the darkness, going around the impassable area
in the center of the chamber, he reached the spot where the rock above
lowered. Advancing in farther, it came down until it pressed against his
back. He knew it wasn't far, not more than a dozen feet, but, without being
able to take a full breath, the cramped passage was daunting.
Richard pushed the packs ahead as he wriggled and wormed his way along.
He had to push with the toes of his boots and, with his fingers finding any
purchase available, pull his chest through, force himself to make headway
into the dark, away from the light.
Jennsen's fingers had an iron grip on his ankle. That was fine with
Richard, because he could then help pull her through with him. He wanted to
be able to help pull her through when she reached the spot that would
compress her chest.
And then she suddenly let go of his ankle.
Off behind him, Richard could hear Jennsen scrambling away. "Jennsen?
What's going on? What are you doing?" She was crying out, whining in terror,
as she bolted toward the light at the opening.
"Jennsen!" Richard called to her. "Don't go that way! Stay with me!"
Wedged in as he was, he couldn't easily turn to see. He forced himself
ahead, crabbing sideways, trying to spot her. Jennsen was clambering toward
the light, ignoring him as he called to her. Kahlan wormed her way up to
him. "What's she doing?" "She's trying to get out. She sees the opening, the
light, and won't listen."
Richard shoved the packs and frantically worked his way ahead, moving
into the area beyond the tight spot, to where it was open enough that he
could at last get a full breath and almost get up on his hands and knees.
Jennsen screamed. Richard could see her clawing frantically at the
rock, but she wasn't making any headway. In a frenzy of effort, she tried to
push herself forward, but, instead, she'd slipped sideways farther down the
slope, wedging herself in tighter.
Each exaggerated, panting breath as she strained and stretched
ratcheted her in deeper.
Richard called to her, trying to get her to listen, to do as he said.
In her desperation, she wasn't responding to any of his instructions. She
saw the opening, wanted out, and would not listen to him.
Fast as he could, Richard scrambled through the darkness and around
toward the opening, guiding Kahlan, Owen, Cara, and Tom through the only way
he knew they could make it. Kahlan held tight to his ankle and he could hear
by the panting of effort that the rest of them were all following in a line
behind her.
Jennsen screamed in terror. She struggled madly, but couldn't move.
Wedged in as she was, with rock compressing her rib cage top and bottom, it
was becoming difficult for her to breathe.
"Jennsen! Take a slow breath! Slow down!" Richard called to her as he
scurried around toward the opening. "Breathe slow! Breathe!"
Richard finally reached the opening. He emerged from the dark crevasse,
squinting in the sudden light. On his knees, he leaned in and helped pull
Kahlan out. Betty scrambled out, somehow having passed the rest of the
people. As Owen and then Cara clambered out of the opening, Richard pulled
the baldric over his head and handed his sword to Kahlan.
Tom called out that he was going back in to try to reach Jennsen.
As soon as the rest were safely out, Richard dove back into the
fissure. Headfirst, on his hands and knees, he scuttled into the dark. He
could see that Tom, from his angle of approach, had no chance to get to her.
"Tom, I'll get her."
"I can reach her," the man said even as he was getting himself wedged
tight.
"No you can't," Richard said in a stern tone. "Wishing won't make it
so. You'll just get yourself stuck. Listen to me. Back out, now, or your
weight will help push you downhill and get you stuck so hard that we won't
be able to get you out. Back up, now, while you're still able to. Go. Let me
get her."
Tom watched Richard moving around behind him, and then, making a face
that showed how unhappy he was to be doing it, he started pushing himself
back up into the darkness, where there was a few precious inches' more room
that would let him make it back out.
Richard worked his way through the tight spot and then moved down the
slope so that he wouldn't be facing downhill as he tried to help Jennsen and
possibly wedge himself in tighter than he wanted. If he wasn't careful, he
would do the same thing Tom had been about to do. Down in the darkness,
Jennsen cried in panic.
Richard, flat on his belly, wiggled and snaked his way deeper, all the
while moving to his left, down the pitch in the shelf of rock. "Jennsen,
breathe. I'm coming. It's all right."
"Richard! Please don't leave me here! Richard!"
Richard spoke in a calm, quiet voice as he moved around behind her down
into the tighter part of the cave. "I'm not going to leave you. You'll be
fine. Just wait for me."
"Richard! I can't move!" She grunted with effort. "I can't breathe! The
ceiling is coming down! It's moving--I can feel it coming down. It's
squeezing me! Please help me! Richard--please don't leave me!"
"You're fine, Jennsen. The ceiling isn't moving. You're just stuck.
I'll have you out in a minute."
Even as he worked his way into the low spot, trying to get up close
behind her, she was still struggling to move forward, making it worse--
there was no way she could go forward and make it out. As she kept
struggling, though, she was slowly slipping deeper down the slope and with
every frantic breath wedging herself in tighter. He could hear how
desperately she was trying to breathe, to draw each shallow breath against
the immovable compression of rock.
Finally all the way back around behind her, Richard started pushing
himself in the way she'd gone. She had gone into a narrow channel that
closed down on the uphill side of her, so there could be no moving her
sideways up the slope; he had to get her to back up the way she'd gone in.
He had to get her to go away from the light and back into what she feared.
The roof of rock scraped against his back, making it difficult to draw
a full breath. He had to take shallow breaths as he moved deeper. The
farther he went, he could not even breathe that deeply.
The need for air, for a deep breath, made the pain of the poison feel
like knives twisting in his ribs. Arms stretched forward, Richard used his
boots to force himself in deeper, trying to ignore his own rising sense of
panic. He reasoned with himself that there were others who knew where he
was, that he wasn't alone. With the powerful feeling that a mountain of rock
was crushing him, reasoning with himself was difficult, especially when the
shallow split of rock he was pressed into hardly let him get any air as it
was and he was desperately working himself deeper trying to reach Jennsen.
He knew that he had to help pull her out of where she was stuck or she would
die there.
"Richard," she cried, "it hurts. I can't breathe. I'm stuck. Dear
spirits, I can't breathe. Please, Richard, I'm scared."
Richard stretched, trying to reach her ankle. It was too far away. He
had to turn his head sideways to advance. Both ears scraped against rock. He
wiggled, inching in tighter even though his better judgment was telling him
that he was already in trouble.
"Jennsen, please, I need you to help me. I need you to push back. Push
back with your hands. Push back toward me."
"No! I have to get out! I'm almost there!"
"No, you're not almost there. You can't make it that way. You have to
trust me. Jennsen, you've got to push back so I can reach you."
"No! Please! I want out! I want out!"
"I'll get you out, I promise. Just push back so I can reach you."
With her blocking the light he couldn't tell if she was doing as he
instructed or not. He squirmed in another inch, then another. His head was
almost stuck. He couldn't imagine how she had gotten in as far as she had.
"Jennsen, push back." His voice was strained. He couldn't get enough of
a breath to talk and to breathe, too.
His fingers stretched forward, reaching, stretching, reaching. His
lungs burned for air. He just wanted to take a deep breath. He desperately
needed a breath. Not being able to draw one was not only painful, but
frightening. His heartbeat pounded in his ears.
As high as they were in the mountains, the air was already thin and it
was difficult to get enough air the way it was. Limited to taking shallow
breaths was making him light-headed. If he didn't get back to where he could
breathe soon, the two of them were going to be forever in this terrible
place.
The tips of Richard's fingers caught the edge of the sole of Jennsen's
boot. He couldn't get a good grip on her foot, though.
"Push back," he whispered into the dark. It was all he could do to keep
his own panic in check. "Jennsen, do as I say. Push back. Do it."
Jennsen's boot moved back into his hand. He snatched it in a tighter
grip and immediately worked his way back a few inches. Pulling with all his
might, he strained to drag her back with him. Try as he might, she wouldn't
budge. She was either stuck tight, or was fighting to go forward.
"Push back," he whispered again. "Use your hands, Jennsen. Push back
toward me. Push."
She was sobbing and crying something he couldn't make out. Richard
wedged his boots, top and bottom, in the tight cleft and then pulled with
all his might. His arm shook with the effort. He managed to draw her back a
few inches.
He wiggled himself back an equal distance and pulled again. With
agonizing effort, he slowly, painstakingly, started drawing her out of the
dead end she had fled into in a panicked attempt to get out.
At times, she tried to squirm back toward the light. Richard, the rock
compressing him tight, kept a firm hold of her boot and muscled her back yet
more, not allowing her to take back any of the distance he gained.
He couldn't straighten his head. That made it more difficult to use his
muscles to move the both of them. With his head lying on the right, he
reached back with his left arm and gripped a small lip of rock in the
ceiling, using it to help haul them back. With his right arm, stretched
forward and holding her by the boot, he drew her back inch by inch.
As he reached back again for another handhold, Richard saw something
not far to his left, down the slope, wedged where the rock narrowed. At
first he thought it was a rock. As he struggled to draw Jennsen back, he
stared at the thing also stuck in the rock. He reached to the side and
touched it. It was smooth and didn't feel at all like the granite.
As he began to make good progress backward he stretched to the side and
managed to get his fingers around the thing. He pulled it to his side and
continued to wiggle back.
With great relief, he was finally back far enough to where he was able
to get enough air. He lay still for a time, just catching his breath. Almost
as much as air, though, he wanted out.
While he talked to Jennsen, distracting her with instructions she only
intermittently followed, he began forcing her back and to the right, where
there was more room. Finally, he managed to move up beside her and seize her
wrist. Once he had her, he started moving her back up the slope, into the
darkness, into the tight place that he knew was the only true way out.
With him up beside her, she was a little more cooperative. All the
while, he kept reassuring her. "This is the way, Jennsen. This is the way.
I'll not leave you. I'll get you out. This is the way. Just come with me and
we'll be out in a few minutes."
When they worked their way up into the dark, tight spot, she began
struggling again, trying again to scramble for the light of the opening, but
he was blocking her way. He stayed close at her side as he kept them both
moving forward. She seemed to find strength in his constant assurances and
his firm grip on her wrist. He was not about to let her get away from him
again.
When they pushed through to the place where the roof rose up a bit, she
started weeping with expectant joy. He knew the feeling. Once the ceiling
rose up a foot or two, he hurried as fast as he could to get her to the
opening, to the light.
The others were waiting right at the entrance to help pull them out.
Richard held the thing he'd retrieved under his left arm as he helped push
Jennsen out first. She rushed into Tom's waiting arms, but only until
Richard crawled out and got to his feet. Then, crying with relief, Jennsen
fled into his arms, clinging to him for dear life.
"I'm so sorry," she said over and over as she cried. "I'm so sorry,
Richard. I was so afraid."
"I know," he comforted as he held her.
He'd been in a similar situation before where he thought he might never
get himself out of such a terrifying place, so he did understand. In such a
stressful circumstance, where you feared you were about to die, it was easy
to be overpowered by the blind need to escape--to live.
"I feel so confused."
"I don't like such tight places, either," he said. "I understand."
"But I don't understand. I've never been afraid of places like that.
Ever since I was very young I've hid in tight little places. Such places
always made me feel safe because no one could find me or get to me. When you
spend your life running and hiding from someone like Darken Rahl, you come
to appreciate small, dark, concealed places.
"I don't know what came over me. It was the strangest thing. It was
like these thoughts that I wouldn't get out, that I couldn't breathe, that I
would die, just started coming into my head. Feelings I've never had before
just started to seep into me. They just seemed to overwhelm me. I've never
done anything like that before."
"Do you still feel these strange feelings?"
"Yes," she said as she wept, "but they're starting to fade, now that
I'm out, now that it's over."
Everyone else had moved off a ways to give her the time she needed to
set herself straight. They sat not far off waiting on an old log turned
silver in the weather.
Richard didn't try to rush her. He just held her and let her know she
was safe.
"I'm so sorry, Richard. I feel like such a fool."
"No need. It's over, now."
"You kept your promise," she said through her tears.
Richard smiled, happy that he had.
Owen, his face tense with worry, looked like he couldn't help himself
from asking a question. "But Jennsen?" he asked as he stepped forward. "Why
didn't you do magic to help yourself?"
"I can't do magic any more than you can."
He rubbed his palms on his hips. "You could if you let yourself. You
are one who is able to touch magic."
"Other people might be able to do magic, but I can't. I don't have any
ability for it."
"What others think is magic is only themselves tricking their senses
and only blinds them to real magic. Our eyes blind us, our senses deceive
us--as I explained before. Only those who have never seen magic, only those
who have never used, sensed, perceived it, only those who do not have any
ability or faculty for it, can actually understand it and therefore only
they can be true practitioners of real magic. Magic must be based entirely
on faith, if it is to be real. You must believe, and then you truly can see.
You are one who can do magic."
Richard and Jennsen stared at the man.
"Richard," Kahlan said in an odd voice before he could say anything to
Owen. "What's that."
Richard blinked at her. "What?"
She pointed. "That, there, under your arm. What is it?"
"Oh," he said. "Something I found wedged in the rock near Jennsen, back
in where she was stuck. In the dark, I couldn't tell what it was other than
that it wasn't rock."
He pulled it out to have a look.
It was a statue.
A statue in his likeness, wearing his war wizard's outfit. The cape was
fixed in place as it swirled to the side of the legs, making the base wider
than the waist.
The lower portion of the figure was a translucent amber color, and
through it could be seen a falling trickle of sand that had nearly filled
the bottom half.
The statue was not all amber, though, as Kahlan's had been. Near the
middle, obscuring the narrowing where the sand dribbled through, the
translucent amber of the bottom began darkening. The higher up the figure,
the darker it became.
The top--the shoulders and head--were as black as a night stone.
A night stone was an underworld thing, and Richard remembered all too
well what that wicked object had looked like. The top of the statue looked
to be made of the same sinister material, all glossy and smooth and so black
that it looked as if it might suck the light right out of the day.
Richard's heart sank at seeing himself represented in such a way, as a
talisman touched by death.
"She made it," Owen said, shaking an accusatorial finger at Jennsen
still sheltered under Richard's right arm. "She made it with magic. I told
you she could. She spun it of evil magic back in that cave when she wasn't
thinking. The magic took over and came out of her, then, when she wasn't
thinking about how she couldn't do magic."
Owen didn't have any idea what he was talking about. This was not a
statue Jennsen made.
This was the second warning beacon, meant to warn the one who could
seal the breach.
"Lord Rahl..."
Richard looked up. It was Cara's voice.
She was standing off a ways, her back to them, looking up at a small
spot of sky off through the trees. Jennsen turned in his arms to see what
had put the odd tone in Cara's voice. Holding his sister close, he stepped
up behind Cara and peered up through the trees where she was looking.
Through a thin area in the canopy of pine, he could see the rim of the
mountain pass above them. Silhouetted against iron gray clouds stealing past
was something man-made.
It looked like a huge statue sitting atop the pass.
Icy wind tore at Richard's and Kahlan's clothes as they huddled close
together at the edge of a thick stand of spruce trees. Low, ragged clouds
raced by as if to escape the colossal, dark, swirling clouds building above
them. Fat flakes of snow danced in the cold gusts. Richard's ears burned in
the numbing cold.
"What do you think?" Kahlan asked.
Richard shook his head. "I don't know." He glanced behind them, back
into the shelter of the trees. "Owen, are you sure you don't know what it
is? You don't have any idea at all?"
The roiling clouds made an ominous backdrop for the imposing statue
sitting up on the ridge.
"No, Lord Rahl. I've never been here before; none of us ever traveled
this route. I don't know what it could be. Unless .. ." His words trailed
off into the moan of the wind.
"Unless what?"
Owen shrank back, twisting the button on his coat as he glanced to the
Mord-Sith on one side of him and Tom and Jennsen on the other. "There is a
foretelling--from the ones who gave us our name and protected us by sealing
the pass. It is taught that when they gave our empire its name, they also
told us that one day a savior would come to us."
Richard wanted to ask the man just what exactly it was he thought they
needed saving from--if they had lived in such an enlightened culture where
they were safe from the unenlightened "savages" of the rest of the world.
Instead, he asked a simpler question he thought Owen might be able to
answer.
"So you think that maybe that's a statue of him, your savior?"
Owen fidgeted, his shoulders finally working into a shrug. "He is not
just a savior. The foretelling also says that he will destroy us."
Richard frowned at the man, hoping this was not going to be another of
his convoluted beliefs. "This savior of yours is going to destroy you. That
makes no sense."
Owen was quick to agree. "I know. No one understands it."
"Maybe it's meant to say that someone will come to save your people,"
Jennsen suggested, "but he will fail and so only end up destroying them in
the attempt."
"Maybe." Owen's face twisted with the displeasure of having to
contemplate such an outcome.
"Maybe," Cara suggested in a grim tone, "it means this man will come,
and after seeing your people, decide they aren't worth saving"-- she leaned
toward Owen--"and decide to destroy them instead."
Owen, as he stared up at Cara, seemed to be considering her words as a
real possibility, rather than the sarcasm Richard knew them to be.
"I don't think that is the meaning," Owen finally told her after
earnest consideration. He turned back to Richard. "The foretelling, as it
has been taught to us, you see, says, first, that a man will come who will
destroy us. It then goes on to say that he is the one who will save us.
'Your destroyer will come and he will redeem you,' " Owen quoted. "That is
how we have been taught the words, how they were told to my people when we
were put here, beyond this pass."
" 'Your destroyer will come and he will redeem you,' " Richard
repeated. He took a patient breath. "Whatever it originally said has
probably been confused and all jumbled up as it's been passed down. It
probably no longer resembles the original saying."
Rather than disagree, as Richard expected, Owen nodded. "Some believe,
as you say, that over the time since we were protected and given our name,
maybe the true words have been lost, or confused. Others believe that it has
been passed down intact and must have important meaning. Some believe that
the foretelling was meant to say only that a savior will come. Others think
it means only that a destroyer will come."
"And what do you believe?" Richard asked.
Owen twiddled the button on his coat until Richard thought it might
come off. "I believe that the foretelling is meant to say that a destroyer
will come--and I believe that he is this man Nicholas, of the Order-- and
then that a savior will come and save us. I believe that man is you, Lord
Rahl. Nicholas is our destroyer. You are our savior."
Richard knew from the book that prophecy didn't function with these
people, with pillars of Creation.
"What your people think is a foretelling," Richard said, "is probably
nothing more than an old adage that people have gotten mixed up."
Owen held his ground, if hesitantly. "We are taught that this is a
foretelling. We are taught that those who named us told us this foretelling
and that they wanted it passed down so all might know of it."
Richard sighed, the wind pulling out a long cloud of his breath. "So
you think that up there is a statue of me, put there thousands of years ago
by the ones who protected you behind the boundary? How would they know, long
before I was born, what I would look like in order to make a statue of me?"
"The true reality knows everything that will be," Owen said by rote. He
forced a half smile as he shrugged again. "After all, it made that little
statue that you found look like you."
Unhappy to be reminded of that, Richard turned away from the man. The
small figure had been made to look like him by magic tied to the boundary,
and, possibly, to a dead wizard in the underworld.
Richard scanned the sky, the rocky slopes all around, the tree line. He
didn't see any sign of life. The statue--they still couldn't quite make out
what it was--sat distant up a treeless, rocky rise. It was yet quite a climb
up to that rim of the pass, to that statue.
Richard was not going to like it if it did indeed turn out to be a
statue of him beneath the gathering gloom.
He already didn't like it one bit that the second warning beacon was
meant for him. It bound him to a responsibility, a duty, he neither wanted
nor could accomplish.
He had no idea how to restore the seal on Bandakar. Zedd had once
created boundaries that were probably similar to the one that had been down
here in the Old World, but even Zedd had used constructed magic he had found
in the Keep. Such constructed spells had been created by ancient wizards
with vast power and knowledge of such things. Zedd had told him that there
were no more such spells.
Richard certainly had no idea how to call forth a spell that could
create such a boundary. More to the point, he didn't see how it would do any
good even if he knew how. What had really been freed from Bandakar when the
boundary failed was the trait of being born without any trace of the
gift--that was why they had all been banished here in the first place. The
Imperial Order was already breeding women from Bandakar in order to breed
the gift out of mankind. There was no telling how far that trait had already
spread. Breeding the women, as it sounded like they were doing, now, would
gain them more children who were pristinely ungifted, children who would be
indoctrinated in the teachings of the Order.
When they started using the men for breeding, the number of such
children would vastly increase. A woman could have a child every year. In
the same time, a man could sire a great number of children bearing his
pristinely ungifted trait.
Despite the Order's creed of self-sacrifice, they had not yet, it would
seem, been willing to sacrifice their women to such an undertaking. Raping
the women in Bandakar and proclaiming it for the good of mankind was fine
with the men of the Order. For the men ruling the Imperial Order to give
over their own women to be bred, however, was quite another matter.
Richard had no doubt that they eventually would start using their own
women to this purpose, but that would come later. In the meantime, the Order
would probably soon start using all the women captured and held as slaves
for this purpose, breeding them to men from Bandakar. The Order's conquest
of the New World would provide them with plenty more women for breeding
stock.
Whereas in ancient times those in the New World tried to limit the
trait from spreading in man, the Imperial Order would do whatever they could
to accelerate it.
"Richard," Kahlan asked in a low voice, so the others farther back in
the trees wouldn't hear, "what do you think it means that the second warning
beacon, the one for you, is turning black like the night stone? Do you think
it means to show you the time you have left to get the antidote?"
Since he had only just found it, he hadn't given it much thought. Even
so, he could interpret it only as a dire warning. The night stone was tied
to the spirits of the dead--to the underworld.
It could be, as Kahlan suggested, that the darkening was meant to show
him how the poison was taking him, and that he was running out of time. For
a number of reasons, though, he didn't believe that was the explanation.
"I don't know for sure," he finally told her, "but I don't think it's a
warning about the poison. I think that the way the statue is turning black
is meant to represent, materially, how the gift is failing in me, how it's
slowly beginning to kill me, how the underworld, the world of the dead, is
slowly enshrouding me."
Kahlan's hand slipped up on his arm, a gesture of comfort as well as
worry. "That was my thought, too. I was hoping you would argue against it.
This means that the gift might be more of a problem than the poison--if,
after all, this dead wizard used the beacon to warn you about it."
Richard wondered if the statue up on the ridge of the pass would hold
any answers. He certainly didn't have any. To make it up there and see, they
would have to leave the shelter of the forest and travel out in the open.
Richard turned and signaled the others forward.
"I don't think the races would be expecting us here," he said as they
gathered around him. "If we really did manage to lose them they won't know
where we went, what direction, so they won't know to look for us, here. I
think we can make it up there without the races, and therefore Nicholas,
knowing."
"Besides," Tom said, "with those low clouds hugging most of the
mountains, they may not be able to search."
"Maybe," Richard said.
It was getting late. In the distant mountains a wolf howled. On another
slope across a deep cleft in the mountains, a second wolf answered. There
would be more than two.
Betty's ears perked toward the howls as she crowded against Jenn-sen's
legs.
"What if Nicholas uses something else?" Jennsen asked.
Cara gripped the blond braid lying over the front of her shoulder as
she scanned the woods to the sides. "Something else?"
Jennsen pulled her cloak tighter around herself as the wind tried to
lift it open. "Well, if he can look through a race's eyes, then maybe he can
look through the eyes of something else."
"You mean a wolf?" Cara asked. "You think that wolf you heard might be
him."
"I don't know," Jennsen admitted.
"For that matter," Richard said, "if he can look through the black eyes
of the races, maybe he could just as easily look through the eyes of a
mouse."
Tom swiped his windblown blond hair back from his forehead as he cast a
wary glance at the sky. "Why do you think he always seems to use the races,
then?"
"Probably because they're better able to cover great distances,"
Richard said. "After all, he'd have a lot of trouble finding us with a
mouse.
"More than that, though, I think he likes the imagery of being with
such creatures, likes thinking of himself as being part of a powerful
predator. He is, after all, hunting us."
"So you think we only have to worry about the races, then?" Jennsen
asked.
"I think he would prefer to watch through the races, but that isn't his
end, only the means," Richard said. "He's after Kahlan and me. Since getting
us is his end, I think he will turn to whatever means he must, if necessary.
He very well might look through even the eyes of a mouse if it would help
him get us."
"If his end is having you," Cara said, "then Owen is helping his ends
by bringing you right to him."
Richard couldn't argue with that. For the moment, though, he had to go
along with Owen's wishes. Soon enough, Richard intended to start doing
things his own way.
"For now," Richard said, "he's still trying to find us, so I expect
that he will stick to the races, since they can cover great distances. But,
since I've killed races with arrows, he must realize that we at least
suspect someone is watching us through their eyes. As we get closer to him,
I see no reason that in the future he might not use something else so we
won't know he's watching us."
Kahlan looked to be alarmed by the idea. "You mean, something like a
wolf, or, or ... I don't know, maybe an owl?"
"Owl, pigeon, sparrow. If I had to guess, then I'd guess that at least
until he finds us he will use a bird."
Kahlan huddled close beside him, using his body to block the wind. They
were up high enough in the mountains that they were just beginning to
encounter snow. From what Richard had seen of the Old World, it generally
appeared too warm for snow. For there to be snow this time of year it could
only be in the most imposing of mountains.
Richard gestured to the icy flakes swirling in the air. "Owen, does it
get cold in winter in Bandakar? Do you get snow?"
"Winds come down from the north, following down our side of the
mountains, I believe. In winter it gets cold. Every couple of years, we get
a bit of snow, but it does not last long. Usually in the winter it rains
more. I do not understand why it snows here, now, when it is summer."
"Because of the elevation," Richard answered idly as he studied the
rising slopes to each side.
Higher yet, the snowpack was thick, and in places, where the wind blew
drifts into overhangs, it would be treacherous. Trying to cross such
precipitous, snow-covered slopes would be perilous, at best. Fortunately,
they were nearing the highest point they would have to climb to make it over
the pass, so they wouldn't have to traverse heavy snow. The bitterly cold
wind, though, was making them all miserable.
"I want to know what that thing is," Richard finally said, gesturing up
at the statue on the rise. He looked around at the others to see if anyone
objected. No one did. "And, I want to know why it's there."
"Do you think we should wait for dark?" Cara asked. "Darkness will hide
us better."
Richard shook his head. "The races must be able to see pretty well in
the dark--after all, that's when they hunt. If given a choice, I'd rather be
in the open during the daylight, when I can see them coming."
Richard hooked his bow under his leg and bent it enough to attach the
bowstring. He drew an arrow from the leather quiver over his shoulder and
nocked it, holding it at rest against the bow with his left hand. He scanned
the sky, checking the clouds, and looking for any sign of the races. He
wasn't entirely sure about the shadows among the trees, but the sky was
clear of races.
"I think we'd better be on our way." Richard's gaze swept across all
their faces, first, making sure they were paying attention. "Walk on the
rocks if at all possible. I don't want to leave a trail behind in the snow
that Nicholas could spot through the eyes of the races."
Nodding their understanding, they all followed after him, in single
file, out onto the rocks. Owen, in front of the ever-watchful Mord-Sith,
kept a wary eye toward the sky. Jennsen and Betty watched the woods to the
sides. In the strong gusts, they all hunched against the wind and the
stinging bite of icy crystals hitting their faces. In the thin air it was
tiring climbing up the steep incline. Richard's legs burned with the effort.
His lungs burned with the poison.
By the look of the sheer walls of rock rising up into broken clouds to
either side, Richard didn't see any way, other than the pass, for people to
make it over the imposing mountains, at least, not without a journey of
tremendous difficulty, hardship, and probably a great loss of life. Even
then, he wasn't really certain that it was even possible.
In places, as they trudged up the edge of the steep rise, he could see
back through gaps in the rock walls of the mountains, under the dark bottom
of clouds, to sunlight beyond the pass.
None of them spoke as they climbed. From time to time they had to pause
to catch their breath. They all kept an eye to the churning sky.
Richard spotted a few small birds in the distance, but nothing of any
size.
As they approached the top, following a zigzagging course so they could
more easily make it up without having to scale rock faces of jutting ledges,
Richard caught glimpses of the statue sitting on a massive base of granite.
From the high vantage point in the pass, he could now see that the rock
on either side of the rise fell away in precipitous drops. The gorge at the
bottom of either side dead-ended at vertical climbs of what would have to be
thousands of feet. Whatever routes might have branched off lower down, they
would have to converge before going up this rise; by the lay of the land, it
became clear to him that this was the only way to make it through this
entire section of the pass.
He realized that anyone approaching Bandakar by this route would have
to climb this ridge in the rise, and they would unavoidably come upon the
monument.
As he mounted the final cut between the snow-dusted boulders standing
twice his height, Richard was able at last to take in the entire statue
guarding the pass.
And guarding the pass it was. This was a sentinel.
The noble figure sitting atop a vast stone base was seated as he
watchfully guarded the pass. In one hand the figure casually held a sword at
the ready, its point resting on the ground. He appeared to be wearing
leather armor, with his cape resting over his lap. The vigilant pose of the
sentinel gave it a resolute presence. The clear impression was that this
figure was set to ward what was beyond.
The stone was worn by centuries of weather, but that weathering failed
to wear away the power of the carving. This figure was carved, and it was
placed, with great purpose. That it was out in the middle of nowhere, at the
summit of a mountain pass no longer traveled and a trail possibly abandoned
after this was set here, made it, to Richard, all the more arresting.
He had carved stone, and he knew what had gone into this. It was not
what he would call fine work, but it was powerfully executed. Just looking
at it gave him goose bumps.
"At least it doesn't look like you," Kahlan said.
At least there was that.
But this thing being there all alone for what very well might have been
thousands of years was worrisome.
"What I'd like to know," Richard said to her, "is why this second
beacon was down there, down the hill, in that cave, and not up here."
Kahlan shared a telling look with him. "If Jennsen hadn't done what she
did, you would never have found it."
Richard walked around the base of the statue, searching--for what he
didn't know. Almost as soon as he started looking, he saw, on the front of
the base, on the top of one of the decorative moldings, an odd void in the
snow. It looked as if something had been sitting there and had then been
taken away. It was a track, of sorts, a telltale.
Richard thought the barren spot looked familiar. He pulled the warning
beacon from his pack and checked the shape of the bottom. His thought
the difficult climb. In places he had to wedge his back against one wall and
use his feet against the opposite wall to brace himself while grappling for
any ledge or crack in the rock he could find to help pull himself up. He had
to balance his pack in his lap as he went, and keep his sword from getting
wedged. It was slow going.
Richard finally reached the high table where the rock from above had
first come down. The hollow left under the mountain of rock was basically
horizontal, rather than vertical, as it had been. Rock rested along the edge
of most of the shelf, but there was one place with ample room for them to
make it through, over the edge and then in under the slab above them. Once
up onto the flat, he leaned over as far as he could, extending a hand down
to help Kahlan.
He heard the grunts of effort from below Kahlan as the rest of the
small company worked their way up the precipitous passage.
From his place atop the table of rock, Richard could finally see light
ahead and light above. He had scouted the route and knew that they were
close to being out the other side, but first they had to make it across the
shelf of rock where the slab left little room above them. It was
uncomfortably confining.
Richard didn't like such places. He knew, though, that there was no
other way through. This was the place he worried most about. Tight as it
was, it was fortunately close to the end.
"We have to crawl on our bellies from here," he told Kahlan. "Hold my
ankle. Have everyone behind do the same."
Kahlan peered ahead toward the light coming from the opening. The glare
of that light made it difficult to see to the sides. "Richard, it doesn't
look big enough. It's just a crack."
Richard pushed his pack out onto the rock. "There's a way. We'll be out
soon."
Kahlan let out a deep breath. "All right. The sooner the better."
"Listen to me," he called back into the darkness. "We're almost out."
"If you make us walk through any more rotting animals, I'll clobber
you," Jennsen called up to him. Everyone laughed.
"No more of that," Richard said. "But there is a difficult spot ahead.
I've been through it, so I know we can all make it. But you have to listen
to me and do as I say. Crawl on your stomach, pushing your pack ahead of
you. Hold the ankle of the person in front of you. That way you'll all
follow in the right place.
"You'll see the light ahead of you. You can't go toward the light. That
isn't the way out. The ceiling drops down too low and the slope of the rock
starts pitching down to the left. If you slip down in there it gets even
tighter; you'll not be able to get out. We have to go around the low place
in the ceiling. We have to go around on the right side, where it's dark, but
not as low. Does everyone understand?"
Agreement echoed up from the darkness.
"Richard," Jennsen called in a small voice, "I don't like being in
here. I want out."
Her voice carried a thread of panic.
"I don't either," he told her. "But I've been through and out the other
side. I made it through and back. You'll be fine. Just follow me and you
won't have a problem."
Her voice drifted up to him from the darkness. "I want to go back."
Richard couldn't let her go back. The ledges, where they were exposed
to the races, were too dangerous.
"Here," Kahlan told her, "you come ahead of me. Take hold of Richard's
ankle and you'll be out before the rest of us."
"I'll see that Betty watches you go through and follows," Tom offered.
That seemed to break the impasse. Jennsen moved up to the ledge and
handed her pack up. Richard, lying on his stomach in the low slit of the
shelf, took her hand to help her up.
When she saw in the light how low and tight it was, that Richard had to
lie on his stomach, she started to tremble. When Richard helped pull her up,
and her face came up close to him, he could see her tears in the dim light.
Her wide blue eyes took in the way ahead, how low it was.
Please, Richard, I'm afraid. I don't want to go in under there."
He nodded. "I know, but it's not far. I won't let you stay in here.
I'll see that you get out." He cupped a hand to the side of her face. "I
promise."
"How do I know you'll keep your promise?"
Richard smiled. "Wizards always keep their promises."
"You said you don't know much about being a wizard."
"But I know how to keep promises."
She at last agreed and let him help her the rest of the way up. When he
pulled her all the way up onto the shelf of the mountainside, and she
actually felt how the roof of rock didn't allow her any room to get up and
that she had to lie flat just to fit, and worse, that the roof of rock was
only scant inches above her back, she started to shiver with terror.
"I know how you feel," he told her. "I do, Jennsen. I hate this, too,
but we have no choice. It's not dangerous if you just follow me through the
place where there's room. Just follow me and we'll be out before you know
it."
"What if it comes down and crushes us? Or what if it comes down just
enough to pin us so we can't move or breathe?"
"It won't," he insisted. "It's been here for ages. It isn't going to
come down. It's not."
She nodded but he didn't know if she really heard him. She began to
whimper as he turned himself around so he could lead her out.
"Take my ankle," he called back to her. "Here, push your pack up to me
and I'll take care of it for you. Then you'll only have to worry about
holding on to my ankle and following behind."
"What if it gets too tight and I can't breathe? Richard, what if I
can't breathe?"
Richard kept his voice calm and confident. "I'm bigger than you, so if
I fit, you will."
She only nodded as she shivered. He extended his hand back and had to
tell her again to pass her pack forward before she did as he instructed.
Once he had her pack, he tied the straps to his and pushed them both on
ahead. She seized his ankle as if it were the only thing keeping her from
falling into the arms of the Keeper of the underworld.
He didn't complain, though, about how hard she held him; he knew her
fear.
Richard pushed the packs out ahead and started inching his way forward.
He tried not to think about the rough ceiling of rock only a hand-width
above his back. He knew it would become ftarrower before they got out. The
shelf of rock sloped upward to the right slightly, into the dark. The light
was to the left, and down.
It looked like the easiest way out was to go straight toward the
opening. It wasn't far. They had to go, instead, up into the darkness and
around the narrowing of the cleft in order to get around to a place where
they could fit through. Forcing himself to go up, into the dark where it
felt tighter and more closed in, rather than toward the light of the
opening, felt wrong, but he had already scouted the route and he knew that
his feelings were wrong about this.
As he moved deeper into the darkness, going around the impassable area
in the center of the chamber, he reached the spot where the rock above
lowered. Advancing in farther, it came down until it pressed against his
back. He knew it wasn't far, not more than a dozen feet, but, without being
able to take a full breath, the cramped passage was daunting.
Richard pushed the packs ahead as he wriggled and wormed his way along.
He had to push with the toes of his boots and, with his fingers finding any
purchase available, pull his chest through, force himself to make headway
into the dark, away from the light.
Jennsen's fingers had an iron grip on his ankle. That was fine with
Richard, because he could then help pull her through with him. He wanted to
be able to help pull her through when she reached the spot that would
compress her chest.
And then she suddenly let go of his ankle.
Off behind him, Richard could hear Jennsen scrambling away. "Jennsen?
What's going on? What are you doing?" She was crying out, whining in terror,
as she bolted toward the light at the opening.
"Jennsen!" Richard called to her. "Don't go that way! Stay with me!"
Wedged in as he was, he couldn't easily turn to see. He forced himself
ahead, crabbing sideways, trying to spot her. Jennsen was clambering toward
the light, ignoring him as he called to her. Kahlan wormed her way up to
him. "What's she doing?" "She's trying to get out. She sees the opening, the
light, and won't listen."
Richard shoved the packs and frantically worked his way ahead, moving
into the area beyond the tight spot, to where it was open enough that he
could at last get a full breath and almost get up on his hands and knees.
Jennsen screamed. Richard could see her clawing frantically at the
rock, but she wasn't making any headway. In a frenzy of effort, she tried to
push herself forward, but, instead, she'd slipped sideways farther down the
slope, wedging herself in tighter.
Each exaggerated, panting breath as she strained and stretched
ratcheted her in deeper.
Richard called to her, trying to get her to listen, to do as he said.
In her desperation, she wasn't responding to any of his instructions. She
saw the opening, wanted out, and would not listen to him.
Fast as he could, Richard scrambled through the darkness and around
toward the opening, guiding Kahlan, Owen, Cara, and Tom through the only way
he knew they could make it. Kahlan held tight to his ankle and he could hear
by the panting of effort that the rest of them were all following in a line
behind her.
Jennsen screamed in terror. She struggled madly, but couldn't move.
Wedged in as she was, with rock compressing her rib cage top and bottom, it
was becoming difficult for her to breathe.
"Jennsen! Take a slow breath! Slow down!" Richard called to her as he
scurried around toward the opening. "Breathe slow! Breathe!"
Richard finally reached the opening. He emerged from the dark crevasse,
squinting in the sudden light. On his knees, he leaned in and helped pull
Kahlan out. Betty scrambled out, somehow having passed the rest of the
people. As Owen and then Cara clambered out of the opening, Richard pulled
the baldric over his head and handed his sword to Kahlan.
Tom called out that he was going back in to try to reach Jennsen.
As soon as the rest were safely out, Richard dove back into the
fissure. Headfirst, on his hands and knees, he scuttled into the dark. He
could see that Tom, from his angle of approach, had no chance to get to her.
"Tom, I'll get her."
"I can reach her," the man said even as he was getting himself wedged
tight.
"No you can't," Richard said in a stern tone. "Wishing won't make it
so. You'll just get yourself stuck. Listen to me. Back out, now, or your
weight will help push you downhill and get you stuck so hard that we won't
be able to get you out. Back up, now, while you're still able to. Go. Let me
get her."
Tom watched Richard moving around behind him, and then, making a face
that showed how unhappy he was to be doing it, he started pushing himself
back up into the darkness, where there was a few precious inches' more room
that would let him make it back out.
Richard worked his way through the tight spot and then moved down the
slope so that he wouldn't be facing downhill as he tried to help Jennsen and
possibly wedge himself in tighter than he wanted. If he wasn't careful, he
would do the same thing Tom had been about to do. Down in the darkness,
Jennsen cried in panic.
Richard, flat on his belly, wiggled and snaked his way deeper, all the
while moving to his left, down the pitch in the shelf of rock. "Jennsen,
breathe. I'm coming. It's all right."
"Richard! Please don't leave me here! Richard!"
Richard spoke in a calm, quiet voice as he moved around behind her down
into the tighter part of the cave. "I'm not going to leave you. You'll be
fine. Just wait for me."
"Richard! I can't move!" She grunted with effort. "I can't breathe! The
ceiling is coming down! It's moving--I can feel it coming down. It's
squeezing me! Please help me! Richard--please don't leave me!"
"You're fine, Jennsen. The ceiling isn't moving. You're just stuck.
I'll have you out in a minute."
Even as he worked his way into the low spot, trying to get up close
behind her, she was still struggling to move forward, making it worse--
there was no way she could go forward and make it out. As she kept
struggling, though, she was slowly slipping deeper down the slope and with
every frantic breath wedging herself in tighter. He could hear how
desperately she was trying to breathe, to draw each shallow breath against
the immovable compression of rock.
Finally all the way back around behind her, Richard started pushing
himself in the way she'd gone. She had gone into a narrow channel that
closed down on the uphill side of her, so there could be no moving her
sideways up the slope; he had to get her to back up the way she'd gone in.
He had to get her to go away from the light and back into what she feared.
The roof of rock scraped against his back, making it difficult to draw
a full breath. He had to take shallow breaths as he moved deeper. The
farther he went, he could not even breathe that deeply.
The need for air, for a deep breath, made the pain of the poison feel
like knives twisting in his ribs. Arms stretched forward, Richard used his
boots to force himself in deeper, trying to ignore his own rising sense of
panic. He reasoned with himself that there were others who knew where he
was, that he wasn't alone. With the powerful feeling that a mountain of rock
was crushing him, reasoning with himself was difficult, especially when the
shallow split of rock he was pressed into hardly let him get any air as it
was and he was desperately working himself deeper trying to reach Jennsen.
He knew that he had to help pull her out of where she was stuck or she would
die there.
"Richard," she cried, "it hurts. I can't breathe. I'm stuck. Dear
spirits, I can't breathe. Please, Richard, I'm scared."
Richard stretched, trying to reach her ankle. It was too far away. He
had to turn his head sideways to advance. Both ears scraped against rock. He
wiggled, inching in tighter even though his better judgment was telling him
that he was already in trouble.
"Jennsen, please, I need you to help me. I need you to push back. Push
back with your hands. Push back toward me."
"No! I have to get out! I'm almost there!"
"No, you're not almost there. You can't make it that way. You have to
trust me. Jennsen, you've got to push back so I can reach you."
"No! Please! I want out! I want out!"
"I'll get you out, I promise. Just push back so I can reach you."
With her blocking the light he couldn't tell if she was doing as he
instructed or not. He squirmed in another inch, then another. His head was
almost stuck. He couldn't imagine how she had gotten in as far as she had.
"Jennsen, push back." His voice was strained. He couldn't get enough of
a breath to talk and to breathe, too.
His fingers stretched forward, reaching, stretching, reaching. His
lungs burned for air. He just wanted to take a deep breath. He desperately
needed a breath. Not being able to draw one was not only painful, but
frightening. His heartbeat pounded in his ears.
As high as they were in the mountains, the air was already thin and it
was difficult to get enough air the way it was. Limited to taking shallow
breaths was making him light-headed. If he didn't get back to where he could
breathe soon, the two of them were going to be forever in this terrible
place.
The tips of Richard's fingers caught the edge of the sole of Jennsen's
boot. He couldn't get a good grip on her foot, though.
"Push back," he whispered into the dark. It was all he could do to keep
his own panic in check. "Jennsen, do as I say. Push back. Do it."
Jennsen's boot moved back into his hand. He snatched it in a tighter
grip and immediately worked his way back a few inches. Pulling with all his
might, he strained to drag her back with him. Try as he might, she wouldn't
budge. She was either stuck tight, or was fighting to go forward.
"Push back," he whispered again. "Use your hands, Jennsen. Push back
toward me. Push."
She was sobbing and crying something he couldn't make out. Richard
wedged his boots, top and bottom, in the tight cleft and then pulled with
all his might. His arm shook with the effort. He managed to draw her back a
few inches.
He wiggled himself back an equal distance and pulled again. With
agonizing effort, he slowly, painstakingly, started drawing her out of the
dead end she had fled into in a panicked attempt to get out.
At times, she tried to squirm back toward the light. Richard, the rock
compressing him tight, kept a firm hold of her boot and muscled her back yet
more, not allowing her to take back any of the distance he gained.
He couldn't straighten his head. That made it more difficult to use his
muscles to move the both of them. With his head lying on the right, he
reached back with his left arm and gripped a small lip of rock in the
ceiling, using it to help haul them back. With his right arm, stretched
forward and holding her by the boot, he drew her back inch by inch.
As he reached back again for another handhold, Richard saw something
not far to his left, down the slope, wedged where the rock narrowed. At
first he thought it was a rock. As he struggled to draw Jennsen back, he
stared at the thing also stuck in the rock. He reached to the side and
touched it. It was smooth and didn't feel at all like the granite.
As he began to make good progress backward he stretched to the side and
managed to get his fingers around the thing. He pulled it to his side and
continued to wiggle back.
With great relief, he was finally back far enough to where he was able
to get enough air. He lay still for a time, just catching his breath. Almost
as much as air, though, he wanted out.
While he talked to Jennsen, distracting her with instructions she only
intermittently followed, he began forcing her back and to the right, where
there was more room. Finally, he managed to move up beside her and seize her
wrist. Once he had her, he started moving her back up the slope, into the
darkness, into the tight place that he knew was the only true way out.
With him up beside her, she was a little more cooperative. All the
while, he kept reassuring her. "This is the way, Jennsen. This is the way.
I'll not leave you. I'll get you out. This is the way. Just come with me and
we'll be out in a few minutes."
When they worked their way up into the dark, tight spot, she began
struggling again, trying again to scramble for the light of the opening, but
he was blocking her way. He stayed close at her side as he kept them both
moving forward. She seemed to find strength in his constant assurances and
his firm grip on her wrist. He was not about to let her get away from him
again.
When they pushed through to the place where the roof rose up a bit, she
started weeping with expectant joy. He knew the feeling. Once the ceiling
rose up a foot or two, he hurried as fast as he could to get her to the
opening, to the light.
The others were waiting right at the entrance to help pull them out.
Richard held the thing he'd retrieved under his left arm as he helped push
Jennsen out first. She rushed into Tom's waiting arms, but only until
Richard crawled out and got to his feet. Then, crying with relief, Jennsen
fled into his arms, clinging to him for dear life.
"I'm so sorry," she said over and over as she cried. "I'm so sorry,
Richard. I was so afraid."
"I know," he comforted as he held her.
He'd been in a similar situation before where he thought he might never
get himself out of such a terrifying place, so he did understand. In such a
stressful circumstance, where you feared you were about to die, it was easy
to be overpowered by the blind need to escape--to live.
"I feel so confused."
"I don't like such tight places, either," he said. "I understand."
"But I don't understand. I've never been afraid of places like that.
Ever since I was very young I've hid in tight little places. Such places
always made me feel safe because no one could find me or get to me. When you
spend your life running and hiding from someone like Darken Rahl, you come
to appreciate small, dark, concealed places.
"I don't know what came over me. It was the strangest thing. It was
like these thoughts that I wouldn't get out, that I couldn't breathe, that I
would die, just started coming into my head. Feelings I've never had before
just started to seep into me. They just seemed to overwhelm me. I've never
done anything like that before."
"Do you still feel these strange feelings?"
"Yes," she said as she wept, "but they're starting to fade, now that
I'm out, now that it's over."
Everyone else had moved off a ways to give her the time she needed to
set herself straight. They sat not far off waiting on an old log turned
silver in the weather.
Richard didn't try to rush her. He just held her and let her know she
was safe.
"I'm so sorry, Richard. I feel like such a fool."
"No need. It's over, now."
"You kept your promise," she said through her tears.
Richard smiled, happy that he had.
Owen, his face tense with worry, looked like he couldn't help himself
from asking a question. "But Jennsen?" he asked as he stepped forward. "Why
didn't you do magic to help yourself?"
"I can't do magic any more than you can."
He rubbed his palms on his hips. "You could if you let yourself. You
are one who is able to touch magic."
"Other people might be able to do magic, but I can't. I don't have any
ability for it."
"What others think is magic is only themselves tricking their senses
and only blinds them to real magic. Our eyes blind us, our senses deceive
us--as I explained before. Only those who have never seen magic, only those
who have never used, sensed, perceived it, only those who do not have any
ability or faculty for it, can actually understand it and therefore only
they can be true practitioners of real magic. Magic must be based entirely
on faith, if it is to be real. You must believe, and then you truly can see.
You are one who can do magic."
Richard and Jennsen stared at the man.
"Richard," Kahlan said in an odd voice before he could say anything to
Owen. "What's that."
Richard blinked at her. "What?"
She pointed. "That, there, under your arm. What is it?"
"Oh," he said. "Something I found wedged in the rock near Jennsen, back
in where she was stuck. In the dark, I couldn't tell what it was other than
that it wasn't rock."
He pulled it out to have a look.
It was a statue.
A statue in his likeness, wearing his war wizard's outfit. The cape was
fixed in place as it swirled to the side of the legs, making the base wider
than the waist.
The lower portion of the figure was a translucent amber color, and
through it could be seen a falling trickle of sand that had nearly filled
the bottom half.
The statue was not all amber, though, as Kahlan's had been. Near the
middle, obscuring the narrowing where the sand dribbled through, the
translucent amber of the bottom began darkening. The higher up the figure,
the darker it became.
The top--the shoulders and head--were as black as a night stone.
A night stone was an underworld thing, and Richard remembered all too
well what that wicked object had looked like. The top of the statue looked
to be made of the same sinister material, all glossy and smooth and so black
that it looked as if it might suck the light right out of the day.
Richard's heart sank at seeing himself represented in such a way, as a
talisman touched by death.
"She made it," Owen said, shaking an accusatorial finger at Jennsen
still sheltered under Richard's right arm. "She made it with magic. I told
you she could. She spun it of evil magic back in that cave when she wasn't
thinking. The magic took over and came out of her, then, when she wasn't
thinking about how she couldn't do magic."
Owen didn't have any idea what he was talking about. This was not a
statue Jennsen made.
This was the second warning beacon, meant to warn the one who could
seal the breach.
"Lord Rahl..."
Richard looked up. It was Cara's voice.
She was standing off a ways, her back to them, looking up at a small
spot of sky off through the trees. Jennsen turned in his arms to see what
had put the odd tone in Cara's voice. Holding his sister close, he stepped
up behind Cara and peered up through the trees where she was looking.
Through a thin area in the canopy of pine, he could see the rim of the
mountain pass above them. Silhouetted against iron gray clouds stealing past
was something man-made.
It looked like a huge statue sitting atop the pass.
Icy wind tore at Richard's and Kahlan's clothes as they huddled close
together at the edge of a thick stand of spruce trees. Low, ragged clouds
raced by as if to escape the colossal, dark, swirling clouds building above
them. Fat flakes of snow danced in the cold gusts. Richard's ears burned in
the numbing cold.
"What do you think?" Kahlan asked.
Richard shook his head. "I don't know." He glanced behind them, back
into the shelter of the trees. "Owen, are you sure you don't know what it
is? You don't have any idea at all?"
The roiling clouds made an ominous backdrop for the imposing statue
sitting up on the ridge.
"No, Lord Rahl. I've never been here before; none of us ever traveled
this route. I don't know what it could be. Unless .. ." His words trailed
off into the moan of the wind.
"Unless what?"
Owen shrank back, twisting the button on his coat as he glanced to the
Mord-Sith on one side of him and Tom and Jennsen on the other. "There is a
foretelling--from the ones who gave us our name and protected us by sealing
the pass. It is taught that when they gave our empire its name, they also
told us that one day a savior would come to us."
Richard wanted to ask the man just what exactly it was he thought they
needed saving from--if they had lived in such an enlightened culture where
they were safe from the unenlightened "savages" of the rest of the world.
Instead, he asked a simpler question he thought Owen might be able to
answer.
"So you think that maybe that's a statue of him, your savior?"
Owen fidgeted, his shoulders finally working into a shrug. "He is not
just a savior. The foretelling also says that he will destroy us."
Richard frowned at the man, hoping this was not going to be another of
his convoluted beliefs. "This savior of yours is going to destroy you. That
makes no sense."
Owen was quick to agree. "I know. No one understands it."
"Maybe it's meant to say that someone will come to save your people,"
Jennsen suggested, "but he will fail and so only end up destroying them in
the attempt."
"Maybe." Owen's face twisted with the displeasure of having to
contemplate such an outcome.
"Maybe," Cara suggested in a grim tone, "it means this man will come,
and after seeing your people, decide they aren't worth saving"-- she leaned
toward Owen--"and decide to destroy them instead."
Owen, as he stared up at Cara, seemed to be considering her words as a
real possibility, rather than the sarcasm Richard knew them to be.
"I don't think that is the meaning," Owen finally told her after
earnest consideration. He turned back to Richard. "The foretelling, as it
has been taught to us, you see, says, first, that a man will come who will
destroy us. It then goes on to say that he is the one who will save us.
'Your destroyer will come and he will redeem you,' " Owen quoted. "That is
how we have been taught the words, how they were told to my people when we
were put here, beyond this pass."
" 'Your destroyer will come and he will redeem you,' " Richard
repeated. He took a patient breath. "Whatever it originally said has
probably been confused and all jumbled up as it's been passed down. It
probably no longer resembles the original saying."
Rather than disagree, as Richard expected, Owen nodded. "Some believe,
as you say, that over the time since we were protected and given our name,
maybe the true words have been lost, or confused. Others believe that it has
been passed down intact and must have important meaning. Some believe that
the foretelling was meant to say only that a savior will come. Others think
it means only that a destroyer will come."
"And what do you believe?" Richard asked.
Owen twiddled the button on his coat until Richard thought it might
come off. "I believe that the foretelling is meant to say that a destroyer
will come--and I believe that he is this man Nicholas, of the Order-- and
then that a savior will come and save us. I believe that man is you, Lord
Rahl. Nicholas is our destroyer. You are our savior."
Richard knew from the book that prophecy didn't function with these
people, with pillars of Creation.
"What your people think is a foretelling," Richard said, "is probably
nothing more than an old adage that people have gotten mixed up."
Owen held his ground, if hesitantly. "We are taught that this is a
foretelling. We are taught that those who named us told us this foretelling
and that they wanted it passed down so all might know of it."
Richard sighed, the wind pulling out a long cloud of his breath. "So
you think that up there is a statue of me, put there thousands of years ago
by the ones who protected you behind the boundary? How would they know, long
before I was born, what I would look like in order to make a statue of me?"
"The true reality knows everything that will be," Owen said by rote. He
forced a half smile as he shrugged again. "After all, it made that little
statue that you found look like you."
Unhappy to be reminded of that, Richard turned away from the man. The
small figure had been made to look like him by magic tied to the boundary,
and, possibly, to a dead wizard in the underworld.
Richard scanned the sky, the rocky slopes all around, the tree line. He
didn't see any sign of life. The statue--they still couldn't quite make out
what it was--sat distant up a treeless, rocky rise. It was yet quite a climb
up to that rim of the pass, to that statue.
Richard was not going to like it if it did indeed turn out to be a
statue of him beneath the gathering gloom.
He already didn't like it one bit that the second warning beacon was
meant for him. It bound him to a responsibility, a duty, he neither wanted
nor could accomplish.
He had no idea how to restore the seal on Bandakar. Zedd had once
created boundaries that were probably similar to the one that had been down
here in the Old World, but even Zedd had used constructed magic he had found
in the Keep. Such constructed spells had been created by ancient wizards
with vast power and knowledge of such things. Zedd had told him that there
were no more such spells.
Richard certainly had no idea how to call forth a spell that could
create such a boundary. More to the point, he didn't see how it would do any
good even if he knew how. What had really been freed from Bandakar when the
boundary failed was the trait of being born without any trace of the
gift--that was why they had all been banished here in the first place. The
Imperial Order was already breeding women from Bandakar in order to breed
the gift out of mankind. There was no telling how far that trait had already
spread. Breeding the women, as it sounded like they were doing, now, would
gain them more children who were pristinely ungifted, children who would be
indoctrinated in the teachings of the Order.
When they started using the men for breeding, the number of such
children would vastly increase. A woman could have a child every year. In
the same time, a man could sire a great number of children bearing his
pristinely ungifted trait.
Despite the Order's creed of self-sacrifice, they had not yet, it would
seem, been willing to sacrifice their women to such an undertaking. Raping
the women in Bandakar and proclaiming it for the good of mankind was fine
with the men of the Order. For the men ruling the Imperial Order to give
over their own women to be bred, however, was quite another matter.
Richard had no doubt that they eventually would start using their own
women to this purpose, but that would come later. In the meantime, the Order
would probably soon start using all the women captured and held as slaves
for this purpose, breeding them to men from Bandakar. The Order's conquest
of the New World would provide them with plenty more women for breeding
stock.
Whereas in ancient times those in the New World tried to limit the
trait from spreading in man, the Imperial Order would do whatever they could
to accelerate it.
"Richard," Kahlan asked in a low voice, so the others farther back in
the trees wouldn't hear, "what do you think it means that the second warning
beacon, the one for you, is turning black like the night stone? Do you think
it means to show you the time you have left to get the antidote?"
Since he had only just found it, he hadn't given it much thought. Even
so, he could interpret it only as a dire warning. The night stone was tied
to the spirits of the dead--to the underworld.
It could be, as Kahlan suggested, that the darkening was meant to show
him how the poison was taking him, and that he was running out of time. For
a number of reasons, though, he didn't believe that was the explanation.
"I don't know for sure," he finally told her, "but I don't think it's a
warning about the poison. I think that the way the statue is turning black
is meant to represent, materially, how the gift is failing in me, how it's
slowly beginning to kill me, how the underworld, the world of the dead, is
slowly enshrouding me."
Kahlan's hand slipped up on his arm, a gesture of comfort as well as
worry. "That was my thought, too. I was hoping you would argue against it.
This means that the gift might be more of a problem than the poison--if,
after all, this dead wizard used the beacon to warn you about it."
Richard wondered if the statue up on the ridge of the pass would hold
any answers. He certainly didn't have any. To make it up there and see, they
would have to leave the shelter of the forest and travel out in the open.
Richard turned and signaled the others forward.
"I don't think the races would be expecting us here," he said as they
gathered around him. "If we really did manage to lose them they won't know
where we went, what direction, so they won't know to look for us, here. I
think we can make it up there without the races, and therefore Nicholas,
knowing."
"Besides," Tom said, "with those low clouds hugging most of the
mountains, they may not be able to search."
"Maybe," Richard said.
It was getting late. In the distant mountains a wolf howled. On another
slope across a deep cleft in the mountains, a second wolf answered. There
would be more than two.
Betty's ears perked toward the howls as she crowded against Jenn-sen's
legs.
"What if Nicholas uses something else?" Jennsen asked.
Cara gripped the blond braid lying over the front of her shoulder as
she scanned the woods to the sides. "Something else?"
Jennsen pulled her cloak tighter around herself as the wind tried to
lift it open. "Well, if he can look through a race's eyes, then maybe he can
look through the eyes of something else."
"You mean a wolf?" Cara asked. "You think that wolf you heard might be
him."
"I don't know," Jennsen admitted.
"For that matter," Richard said, "if he can look through the black eyes
of the races, maybe he could just as easily look through the eyes of a
mouse."
Tom swiped his windblown blond hair back from his forehead as he cast a
wary glance at the sky. "Why do you think he always seems to use the races,
then?"
"Probably because they're better able to cover great distances,"
Richard said. "After all, he'd have a lot of trouble finding us with a
mouse.
"More than that, though, I think he likes the imagery of being with
such creatures, likes thinking of himself as being part of a powerful
predator. He is, after all, hunting us."
"So you think we only have to worry about the races, then?" Jennsen
asked.
"I think he would prefer to watch through the races, but that isn't his
end, only the means," Richard said. "He's after Kahlan and me. Since getting
us is his end, I think he will turn to whatever means he must, if necessary.
He very well might look through even the eyes of a mouse if it would help
him get us."
"If his end is having you," Cara said, "then Owen is helping his ends
by bringing you right to him."
Richard couldn't argue with that. For the moment, though, he had to go
along with Owen's wishes. Soon enough, Richard intended to start doing
things his own way.
"For now," Richard said, "he's still trying to find us, so I expect
that he will stick to the races, since they can cover great distances. But,
since I've killed races with arrows, he must realize that we at least
suspect someone is watching us through their eyes. As we get closer to him,
I see no reason that in the future he might not use something else so we
won't know he's watching us."
Kahlan looked to be alarmed by the idea. "You mean, something like a
wolf, or, or ... I don't know, maybe an owl?"
"Owl, pigeon, sparrow. If I had to guess, then I'd guess that at least
until he finds us he will use a bird."
Kahlan huddled close beside him, using his body to block the wind. They
were up high enough in the mountains that they were just beginning to
encounter snow. From what Richard had seen of the Old World, it generally
appeared too warm for snow. For there to be snow this time of year it could
only be in the most imposing of mountains.
Richard gestured to the icy flakes swirling in the air. "Owen, does it
get cold in winter in Bandakar? Do you get snow?"
"Winds come down from the north, following down our side of the
mountains, I believe. In winter it gets cold. Every couple of years, we get
a bit of snow, but it does not last long. Usually in the winter it rains
more. I do not understand why it snows here, now, when it is summer."
"Because of the elevation," Richard answered idly as he studied the
rising slopes to each side.
Higher yet, the snowpack was thick, and in places, where the wind blew
drifts into overhangs, it would be treacherous. Trying to cross such
precipitous, snow-covered slopes would be perilous, at best. Fortunately,
they were nearing the highest point they would have to climb to make it over
the pass, so they wouldn't have to traverse heavy snow. The bitterly cold
wind, though, was making them all miserable.
"I want to know what that thing is," Richard finally said, gesturing up
at the statue on the rise. He looked around at the others to see if anyone
objected. No one did. "And, I want to know why it's there."
"Do you think we should wait for dark?" Cara asked. "Darkness will hide
us better."
Richard shook his head. "The races must be able to see pretty well in
the dark--after all, that's when they hunt. If given a choice, I'd rather be
in the open during the daylight, when I can see them coming."
Richard hooked his bow under his leg and bent it enough to attach the
bowstring. He drew an arrow from the leather quiver over his shoulder and
nocked it, holding it at rest against the bow with his left hand. He scanned
the sky, checking the clouds, and looking for any sign of the races. He
wasn't entirely sure about the shadows among the trees, but the sky was
clear of races.
"I think we'd better be on our way." Richard's gaze swept across all
their faces, first, making sure they were paying attention. "Walk on the
rocks if at all possible. I don't want to leave a trail behind in the snow
that Nicholas could spot through the eyes of the races."
Nodding their understanding, they all followed after him, in single
file, out onto the rocks. Owen, in front of the ever-watchful Mord-Sith,
kept a wary eye toward the sky. Jennsen and Betty watched the woods to the
sides. In the strong gusts, they all hunched against the wind and the
stinging bite of icy crystals hitting their faces. In the thin air it was
tiring climbing up the steep incline. Richard's legs burned with the effort.
His lungs burned with the poison.
By the look of the sheer walls of rock rising up into broken clouds to
either side, Richard didn't see any way, other than the pass, for people to
make it over the imposing mountains, at least, not without a journey of
tremendous difficulty, hardship, and probably a great loss of life. Even
then, he wasn't really certain that it was even possible.
In places, as they trudged up the edge of the steep rise, he could see
back through gaps in the rock walls of the mountains, under the dark bottom
of clouds, to sunlight beyond the pass.
None of them spoke as they climbed. From time to time they had to pause
to catch their breath. They all kept an eye to the churning sky.
Richard spotted a few small birds in the distance, but nothing of any
size.
As they approached the top, following a zigzagging course so they could
more easily make it up without having to scale rock faces of jutting ledges,
Richard caught glimpses of the statue sitting on a massive base of granite.
From the high vantage point in the pass, he could now see that the rock
on either side of the rise fell away in precipitous drops. The gorge at the
bottom of either side dead-ended at vertical climbs of what would have to be
thousands of feet. Whatever routes might have branched off lower down, they
would have to converge before going up this rise; by the lay of the land, it
became clear to him that this was the only way to make it through this
entire section of the pass.
He realized that anyone approaching Bandakar by this route would have
to climb this ridge in the rise, and they would unavoidably come upon the
monument.
As he mounted the final cut between the snow-dusted boulders standing
twice his height, Richard was able at last to take in the entire statue
guarding the pass.
And guarding the pass it was. This was a sentinel.
The noble figure sitting atop a vast stone base was seated as he
watchfully guarded the pass. In one hand the figure casually held a sword at
the ready, its point resting on the ground. He appeared to be wearing
leather armor, with his cape resting over his lap. The vigilant pose of the
sentinel gave it a resolute presence. The clear impression was that this
figure was set to ward what was beyond.
The stone was worn by centuries of weather, but that weathering failed
to wear away the power of the carving. This figure was carved, and it was
placed, with great purpose. That it was out in the middle of nowhere, at the
summit of a mountain pass no longer traveled and a trail possibly abandoned
after this was set here, made it, to Richard, all the more arresting.
He had carved stone, and he knew what had gone into this. It was not
what he would call fine work, but it was powerfully executed. Just looking
at it gave him goose bumps.
"At least it doesn't look like you," Kahlan said.
At least there was that.
But this thing being there all alone for what very well might have been
thousands of years was worrisome.
"What I'd like to know," Richard said to her, "is why this second
beacon was down there, down the hill, in that cave, and not up here."
Kahlan shared a telling look with him. "If Jennsen hadn't done what she
did, you would never have found it."
Richard walked around the base of the statue, searching--for what he
didn't know. Almost as soon as he started looking, he saw, on the front of
the base, on the top of one of the decorative moldings, an odd void in the
snow. It looked as if something had been sitting there and had then been
taken away. It was a track, of sorts, a telltale.
Richard thought the barren spot looked familiar. He pulled the warning
beacon from his pack and checked the shape of the bottom. His thought