Kahlan looked up expectantly. “And were you able to help? Were you able to save the babies?”
Holding Kahlan’s gaze, she slowly shook her head.
“I’m afraid that in every case like this that I’ve seen, despite what I did, not one of the babies survived.”
Kahlan swallowed back her fear. “What about the mothers?”
Shale, with a grave look, shook her head again. “None of those mothers survived, either.”
Kahlan’s muscles went slack. Her weight sank back. The world seemed to be spinning.
That was the end, then. The end of everything.
Shale put a hand gently on Kahlan’s shoulder. “But we have things on our side that I didn’t have any of those other times.”
Kahlan looked up. “What things?”
“In every one of those cases someone had to come to get me, so I wasn’t there from when it started. With you, I was right there at the beginning, so I was able to use a bit of my gift to try to stabilize the situation right from the first—before it was already too late, the way it was with those other women.”
“Can you heal me, then? Heal the twins? Can you do something for us?”
“Before I came here from the Northern Waste, I would have said no, it is beyond what is possible. But since I have arrived, I have seen things that I would not have thought possible. I have seen Lord Rahl heal wounds that could not be healed. I have seen you bring him back from the dead. I have seen Lord Rahl do things that I used to know with certainty could not be done.
“If you and Lord Rahl have taught me anything, it is that we are all more than we may think we are, that we should never give in to despair and defeat, that we should never give up.
“I intend to save you and the twins, even if I have never been able to do such a thing before. That is the long and short of it. I will keep all three of you alive until Lord Rahl returns with the herb that can reverse what is happening so that you can carry the twins until it is time for them to be born.”
Kahlan felt more tears run down the side of her face. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Shale leaned in and placed one hand on Kahlan’s forehead, and the other on her swollen belly.
“Now, I am going to put you into a deep sleep in order to slow down what is happening. I will do everything I can to help the twins stay in the safety of your womb until your husband returns with the mother’s breath. When he does, it will heal you.
“Until then, you need to sleep. The next time you wake, if I am half the sorceress I think I am, half the woman you have taught me to be, you will be well on the road to being set right.”
Kahlan wanted to say something, but before she could, magic swiftly brought darkness that took her.
2
Richard lifted his shoulder, trying to shelter his ear from a frigid gust of wind. His fingers and ears ached from the cold. As the sun sank behind the mountains, not only was the light fading fast, but the temperature high up in the mountains seemed to be dropping even faster.
The cold, though, was the least of Richard’s concerns. He urgently needed to get even higher up in the mountains to the tree line to find the mother’s breath plant if he was to save both Kahlan and their unborn babies.
Vika had told him that mother’s breath had odd, lopsided leaves. She held up her fist with the back of her hand facing him. “The shape of the leaves looks like this. If you ever saw it once, you would never forget it, but it’s rare. I’ve only seen it a couple of times in my life, and then only up in the mountains near the tree line.”
Richard dared not let himself worry about how rare it was. He just needed to get up to where it grew so he could search for it. He told himself that he was going to find it, and that was that.
The tree line, though, was still quite some distance away and much higher up the mountains. It was slow going trying to find an uncharted way up among the rocks and often dense trees of the steep and rugged terrain. It was difficult enough in the day, but he knew that in such mountainous country where there were no trails, it would be virtually impossible for the horses to climb once it was dark.
He also knew from Shale’s urgency that time was critical to Kahlan’s survival, so darkness or no darkness, one way or another, he intended to press on. Since the horses couldn’t continue on in darkness, as soon as he found a place to leave them, he intended to keep going without them.
An all-too-familiar memory came to mind. Zedd had always said that nothing was ever easy.
Richard forced the thought from his mind as he turned his attention toward an opening between a stand of young spruce trees. Beyond was a jumble of rock with just enough space for the horses to pass through. It was the only way he could find that looked to have any chance to lead them higher.
Richard was using all his knowledge and experience as a woods guide to find a way to steadily make it to higher ground. Occasionally, game trails helped. Even so, without a real trail, they had a number of times come to the base of impassable cliffs that forced them to find another way around so they could keep going up. Other times, what had looked like a good route ahead ended at a drop-off that forced them to backtrack and find another way in order to keep going.
Richard tried to scan the mountainside higher up while his horse carefully picked its way over the loose rock between tall rock formations rising up to either side. Water seeped down the faces of some of the speckled rock, leaving green and brown streaks. Plants growing in the cracks hung down in places, making it look like green walls. Tangles of roots here and there made the footing tricky. He wanted the horse to hurry, but he knew that it was climbing as fast as it could. It was almost as if it could sense his urgency.
As they made steady progress ever higher, they entered low clouds. The soft gray blankets rolled over the jutting towers of rock as if trying to find a way down. As they climbed upward into the clouds it made the granite the horses had to walk over slick and the footing dangerous. In places the horses had difficulty on the steep ground only made worse in the wet. Their hooves slipped repeatedly before they could find adequate grip.
He knew that in such steep country going back down would be considerably more difficult for the horses than going up. It would likely be too dangerous in many places to ride down. For much of the way down he knew they would have to do the descent on foot, letting the horses pick their way without having to also deal with a rider who would make it more difficult for them to balance.
But first they had to find the plant Shale had sent them for. That was all that mattered.
Vika followed behind without comment. She was his sworn protector, after all, and in addition to wanting to find the mother’s breath, as Mord-Sith, Richard’s safety was her first responsibility. She knew how desperate he was to keep going despite how dark and dangerous it was getting, so she didn’t object. With the way the trees found places to grow in among the rocks they were picking their way over, even without the fog the canopies were too dense for them to see higher up and how much farther they would need to go.
Not long before, through an opening in the trees and despite the thickening fog, in a rare moment of clear sky he had been able to catch a brief glimpse of the mountains towering above them. Through that opening in the trees he had seen that the tree line was still a great distance away.
As it grew darker, he was having trouble picking out a passable route. On top of the darkness, the fog was making it difficult to see very far. Besides cutting visibility, the fog was creating an icy mist that was both miserable and slippery.
As they came up into a broad area that was somewhat level, their progress blocked by a fragmented granite wall, Richard frantically looked for a way up. Worried they were again going to have to backtrack, he suddenly spotted something in among the trees atop that vertical granite barrier.