“Who are you?” Richard asked in a whisper as more and more of the creatures were continually materializing in the shadows all around, each one scribbles at first, then becoming its full form, until they packed the room with their tall, black, steaming, dripping shapes.
When their wide mouths opened and their thin lips drew back in a kind of snarl, Richard could see their long, sharp, pointed teeth. Those sharp white teeth stood out against the wet, black bodies. Slime drew out in thin strands between the top and bottom teeth as they opened their mouths wider, hissing with threat.
“Who are you?” Richard asked Dori again, appalled at what he was seeing all around him. “I mean, who are your kind? What are you? What are you called?”
“We are the Gleeeee,” she said, dragging the name out in a guttural growl that was bone-chilling.
Hundreds of them, it seemed, surrounded him, packed into every available space in the library, some even crouched atop the rows of bookcases, all leaning in toward him. The steam rising from their wet bodies collected like a cloud near the ceiling. Their lumpy black skin shimmered in the shadowy light. Their teeth clacked as they snapped their jaws at him.
“The Glee,” Richard repeated.
“Yessss,” she said as she grinned with evil intent.
“But how are you able to be in the body of this girl? How do the Glee travel from your world to ours?”
“I am able to put my mind into this body.”
Richard frowned. “But how?”
“Because I am the one who presently serves as the Golden Goddess, my mind is able to go to those places where I send the Gleeeee. I am able to enter the mind of another. I am now in this pathetic, weak, skin creature.”
Richard gestured up at all the menacing creatures behind her. “And how are your kind able to come here, to our world?”
“We come.” Dori cocked her head. “We collect other worlds. It is what we do.”
Richard realized that, for whatever reason, he wasn’t going to be able to get any better explanation out of her, possibly because she didn’t know how they did it, only that they did. He guessed that maybe it was something like someone asking him how he breathed, how he walked, and how he was able to talk. Like her, he just knew that he did.
He gazed around at the hundreds of creatures packed into the library, their wet bodies sliding against one another as they vied for a better position, trying to get closer to their prey.
“Why did you need to bring so many just to kill me?”
“Because I wanted the Gleeeee to see that your magic is not to be feared so they can tell others. With caution about magic dispelled, we will become a tide that will wash over your world. I am the Golden Goddess. I am the bringer of that tide.”
16
“What do you suppose he is doing in there?” Shale asked as she paused to gaze nervously at the double doors before turning her attention back to Kahlan.
The woman’s pacing was starting to get on Kahlan’s nerves. She knew that something was terribly wrong, and her heart already hammered in dread. Richard had wanted to see all the gifted in the palace, and when they proved to have very little useful power, Kahlan had thought he would be disappointed, but he wasn’t.
It was obvious to her now that he’d had some kind of plan when he called all those gifted people up to the library area. Kahlan didn’t know what that plan had been or what it was he had been looking for, but she did know that it had brought him what he had been seeking. Kahlan worried what his real reason could have been for wanting to see all the gifted. More worrisome, though, was what he could have really been looking for, and what he had found.
He was the Seeker, of course, and Kahlan had seen him do such inexplicable things before. Kahlan knew Richard, and she knew that he was focused on something. Something dangerous. Something so dangerous that he hadn’t told her what he was really doing or what it was about.
Kahlan slowly shook her head as Shale stood over her, waiting for an answer. “If I know Richard, and I do, he has gotten some crazy idea into his head.”
“Crazy idea?” Shale was clearly agitated by the answer and considered it unsatisfactory. “You said that before. What kind of crazy idea?”
“Lord Rahl gets crazy ideas sometimes,” Berdine said, coming to Kahlan’s rescue.
Shale paused in her pacing to stare incredulously at the Mord-Sith.
“How do you know that?”
“I know because I am Lord Rahl’s favorite,” Berdine explained with a grin.
Whereas the others were tall, muscular, and blond, Berdine had wavy brown hair, also pulled back into a single braid. She was shorter than the others, too, with a curvier, solid build. While she looked different from the other Mord-Sith, and had a rather flippant nature, she was no less devoted or deadly.
Shale blinked at the woman. “His favorite?”
“He doesn’t have favorites,” Kahlan absently reminded her as she stared again at the double doors. “He’s told you many times, Berdine, that he loves you all equally.”
Berdine beamed as she nodded. “I know. But he loves me more equally.”
Kahlan could only shake her head. She didn’t feel like indulging Berdine’s nonsense. Kahlan knew that Berdine sometimes turned to the distraction of such seemingly inane banter when she was worried for Richard.
Kahlan was worried for him, too. She thought again about how she had heard Richard lock the latch on the double doors. Was he worried about someone interrupting them? Or did he want to lock Dori in for some crazy reason?
“What is she talking about?” Shale complained. Kahlan had learned over the years that sorceresses tended to complain a lot. It was part of their nature. An annoying part. “What does she mean about Richard getting crazy ideas?”
Kahlan, sitting on the front edge of one of the ugly orange chairs, hands in her lap, her back straight, finally looked up at Shale when she came insistently closer, expecting an answer.
Kahlan lifted a hand in a vague gesture. “Richard sometimes has crazy ideas. At least, they always seem crazy to us at the time, but they’re not crazy to Richard. He is always running odd little bits of information and strange calculations through his head that none of us could possibly know about or understand and so the things he says or does can seem … crazy.”
“That’s the truth,” Cassia chimed in. “I haven’t known him as long as some of the others, but I certainly have seen him get crazy ideas.”
A few of the other Mord-Sith nodded that they, too, were all too familiar with Richard’s crazy ideas.
“It isn’t just that Lord Rahl gets crazy ideas,” Nyda explained. “The man is crazy. Stone-cold crazy. That’s why he has crazy ideas. That’s why he needs all of us to protect him.”
Shale looked appalled. “You mean he does that a lot?” she asked as she leaned down toward Kahlan. “Get these crazy ideas?”
Kahlan glanced to the doors again before answering the sorceress. “I don’t know. Sometimes he just does. A lot of times it’s simply hard to imagine what he’s thinking. He doesn’t always have the time or patience to explain things. I don’t know how to explain the ideas he gets in his head.”
“That’s because they’re crazy,” Berdine offered, helpfully.
Kahlan ignored her. “Sometimes when we all think we know exactly what we must do, then he suddenly does the opposite. Or he comes up with something out of the blue that no one expected or understands. Sometimes he does things as the Seeker that he knows he has to do, and we just don’t know his reasoning, so it seems crazy to us, that’s all.”
“Like what?” Shale pressed.
Kahlan got up from the chair and went to the doors. She leaned close, putting an ear almost against the glass for a moment. She didn’t hear anything. As she returned to Shale and Berdine she hooked a long strand of hair behind an ear.