Red paced off a ways, considering. Kahlan couldn’t see her face. After a time she turned back.
“Dear spirits,” she whispered. “You may be right. He is as headstrong as they come when he has the bit between his teeth.
“With such a free will, and being gifted, it can’t be foreseen how the ripples he creates will interact with other people and other events. Doing as I said very well might have resulted in events turning out exactly as you say, with him dead in the end, and the Mother Confessor as well.”
“I know they would,” Nicci said. “Not because I can see the flow of events in time, but because I know the man’s heart. He has often said that he would go to the underworld to get Kahlan. He meant those words. He was dead serious. He would have ended his own life to go after what matters to him more than life itself.
“Had it happened your way, the three of us would all be dead. Instead, with the way it happened, it leaves Kahlan and me still alive. That means we can work to change things. Had it not happened this way, there would be no hope, but now, with us alive and able to work on the problem, there is at least a chance.
“Sulachan and Hannis Arc must be stopped before they can ever bring the insanity of their scheme to pass. You may know about the flow of time, Red, but I know more about prophecy than you will ever know, and I can tell you with absolute certainty, that our only chance–your only chance–is Richard.”
“Yes.” Red swallowed. “And now he is dead.”
CHAPTER 10
“Yes, he is dead, but so was I,” Kahlan said. “I came back and so must he. There has to be a way. It’s the only chance we have.”
Red slowly shook her head. “I saw you coming, but because your purpose involves Richard, and I can’t see events surrounding him very well, I thought you must be coming to seek my help to get his spirit free of the dark ones who have him. That’s what I thought you would want. My intention was to help you free his spirit so he could work to help us from the other side of the veil and then go on to find peace with the good spirits.”
“That’s not good enough,” Kahlan said. “You need to help us bring his spirit back to this world, help us bring him back to life so he can stop Sulachan.”
Red looked exasperated. “But it’s not like it was with you. You were dead very briefly. He is well beyond that point. Sometimes, if it is done quickly enough a person can be pulled back through the veil. But in this case too much time has passed. Richard is beyond that point.”
“You know that I had the Hedge Maid’s poisonous touch of death in me,” Kahlan said. “That touch was tainted with death and brought to this world. But the balance was that in the world of the dead that touch also carried the spark of life. Like me, Richard had the same taint of death in life. That means that his spirit would still have to carry that spark of life. At least for a time.”
Red shook her head without looking up. “As remarkable as it was, I understand how it was possible for such a thing to work for you. The difference is he has been dead too long. Your body was healed and you came back to it almost immediately. His soul may indeed still carry that spark, but the connection between worlds weakens in a very short time as his body breaks down and decomposes. Even with that spark, there is nothing viable for his spirit to return to.”
“Yes there is,” Kahlan insisted. “You don’t know all that happened to change that.”
Red frowned as she turned back. “What are you talking about?”
“Abbot Dreier was gifted and he also possessed powerful occult abilities. Those are the same powers that were used to create the half people. I was able to get Dreier to use those abilities to suspend the death process in Richard’s body.”
“Suspend the death process?” The witch woman looked incredulous. “What are you talking about?”
Kahlan stood. “The half people–like the ones who came into your home–live for an extremely long time because they carry a link to the underworld. Emperor Sulachan was once a powerful wizard. He stripped their souls from them and sent those lost souls to wander between worlds, forever lost. He then linked their soulless bodies to the underworld with the use of occult powers in order to suspend time from touching them in the same way it ordinarily touches anything living.
“Emperor Sulachan planned to transcend death. Since everyone he knew, everyone he ruled, would be long dead by the time he returned, he would not have a nation to command, no army to reestablish his rule. In order to accomplish that he wanted the half people waiting and ready to serve him once his spirit returned to this world.”
“That’s true.…” Red frowned as she recollected. “When they came through the pass where I live, I remember feeling within them that terrible connection to elements of the underworld.”
Kahlan stepped closer. “That timeless link keeps them from aging like normal people. It keeps time from working on their living body the way it ordinarily would.”
“It was the same with those of us who lived at the Palace of the Prophets,” Nicci said as she came to a halt beside Kahlan. “Nathan Rahl lived there for nearly a thousand years. The prelate was nearly as old. I lived there for several lifetimes of those outside the spell of power around the place. The link to the timeless element of the underworld works. I’m living proof of it. So is Nathan Rahl. So are the half people.”
“By using his occult powers in the same way,” Kahlan explained, “Abbot Dreier was able to link that timeless element of the underworld to Richard’s body to keep it the same as it was the moment he died. He isn’t living, but time isn’t ravaging his body, either, as it ordinarily would. Dreier said Richard will remain in that state for quite a long time. He isn’t alive, but his body is not exactly dead, either.
“You might say that his life is suspended.”
“I don’t know.…” Red was still skeptical, but she was frowning in thought.
“I do,” Kahlan said. “You have only to touch Richard’s flesh as I have done to know it’s true. He seems so alive, like he is only asleep, except he takes no breath and his heart is still. Yet he never went stiff the way the dead do in short order, nor did his blood pool on the underside of his body. His tongue isn’t swelling the way it does in the dead.
“He remains the same now as he was in life, the same as the moment he died, except that his life force, his soul, his connection to the Grace, is beyond the veil.”
Red gave Kahlan a disparaging look. “That’s a pretty vital element. It is an essential element.”
“I know, but he is preserved for now until we can figure out how to bring his life force, his spirit, back into his body. Until then, his body waits, ready to receive his spirit.”
“Do you grasp the full meaning of what the Mother Confessor is saying?” Nicci asked Red. “There is a link from this world–from Richard’s body–to the underworld where his spark of life is. The Grace still exists. The lines within the Grace are still intact through the boundary of the veil–at least until Sulachan destroys what the Grace represents.
“Until then, death is here, in this world, while life is there, in that one. It’s in balance for the moment.”
“But that balance can’t last–it won’t last,” Red told her.
“Of course not,” Nicci agreed. “That is why we must act, and act quickly, while we still can.”