“Since that time,” Nicci said, “they have forgotten how to ride the rim, as it used to be called, between the worlds of life and death.”
“Not all of them,” Kahlan reminded her, drawing Nicci’s gaze. “Richard has done that before. He has gone to the underworld and returned.”
Nicci nodded. “Another of the things wizards used to be able to do that Richard somehow managed to accomplish instinctively. Another of the things that mark him as the one.”
“Can you travel there?” Kahlan asked, wondering how the sorceress was going to contact the spiritist they needed.
Nicci finally spoke into the silence. “I was a Sister of the Dark. Still, I cannot travel the underworld as Richard or those wizards once did. I can, though, part the veil and look beyond.”
Kahlan glanced around the room. “How are you going to see into the spirit world?”
Nicci lifted both arms, gracefully turning her hands over. All the candles in the room except the eight around the Grace extinguished. The room out beyond those eight candles seemed to vanish into nothingness.
“Everything about Richard’s life emanating from that point of his blood, touches you,” Nicci told Kahlan. “Everything he is touches you. In that way, he exists through you. That is how I will reach into the spirit world–through you.”
The sorceress gestured. “Sit in the center, beside that drop of your husband’s blood.”
Kahlan, tears running down her cheeks, carefully stepped over the bloody lines of the Grace and sat in the center beside Richard’s blood.
“To see into the spirit world,” Nicci said, “I must be able to look beyond this world to that other realm that exists in the same place all around us, at the same time, in the same place as existence, the negative to the positive, the Subtractive to the Additive.
“In a way, it is the shadow cast by life.
“We are all part of all things. We merely need to look beyond what is around us.” She gestured to the candles. “The light of those flames will be our anchor to this world, the world of life, our reminder of what actually exists.”
Nicci’s words brought back haunting memories for Kahlan of being in that dark place where her soul had been drawn.
Nicci closed her eyes then and began a soft chant in the same strange language she had used before. Kahlan trembled slightly at the enormity of dealing with the world of souls, at her abject misery of having lost her soul mate.
As she was lulled by Nicci’s soft, throaty chant, she felt a strange tingling run through her, as if a thousand distant voices were all trying to speak through her. The feeling strengthened or lessened somehow with Nicci’s words.
Kahlan waited until Nicci fell silent before speaking. “What is that language you’re speaking?”
“It is the opposite of the language of Creation. It is the language of the dead,” Nicci said softly without opening her eyes. “It is used by Sisters of the Dark to summon that other world all around us that we never see. The language of the dead contains Subtractive threads that bring about the parting of the veil to the underworld.”
In a way, it all made sense. It made Kahlan, sitting in the center of the Grace, feel a part of everything. The problem was going to be finding the one they needed out of all the souls in the darkness beyond the veil, out of all those voices she heard.
“Wait,” Kahlan said as she frowned in thought.
Nicci opened her eyes and looked up.
“You said ‘Sacred is the sword when there is no hope but in the blade.’ I think I know what needs to be done.”
She scrambled to her feet and retrieved the amulet from around Richard’s neck. In its place, she laid the Sword of Truth down the length of Richard’s body. She placed his arms across his chest and then folded his fingers around the wire-wound grip and the word TRUTH woven in gold through the silver wire.
“Let the sword’s anger help be your beacon,” she whispered to Richard. “Let the righteous rage from the sword help you find your way back to the righteous anger against evil and those who would end life. Let anger be your guide back to the fight for life.”
She could feel the magic of the sword’s anger heat in response.
When finished, she carefully stepped over the blood and back into the center of the Grace. She held the amulet out by the chain and dropped it into Nicci’s hand when she turned up her palm. Kahlan tried not to think about how she had just handed an ancient object of power to a Sister of the Dark.
Nicci placed the chain around her neck and let the ancient amulet, made by Baraccus himself, lie against her chest, against her heart.
“Time to dance with death,” she whispered into the darkness.
CHAPTER 14
Hannis Arc, standing in the well-used road, gazed with displeasure at the closed gates in the wall around the small city of Drendon Falls. With the heavy gates closing off the road, the sheer cliffs hard against the back of the city, and the forested mountains all around, the place was well protected from threat of conquest. The falls showering down from the cliffs at the back of the city, fed by mountain springs above, provided ample water flowing through waterways that eventually drained underground, so the people of Drendon Falls felt confident they could close the city gates and be able to endure a long siege.
Hannis Arc had no interest in conducting a siege.
Soldiers of their home guard, most armed with bows or spears, manned the tops of the walls ready to repel any assault. They all watched from a position they considered to be safe, and although obviously tense, didn’t look overly concerned. None of them had arrows nocked, or spears at the ready. Hannis Arc knew that Drendon Falls had withstood sieges in the past, and had never been conquered.
Of course, there was not much reason for an enemy to bother with putting a lot of effort into conquering Drendon Falls. The small city lay on a less important trade route in one of the less populated areas of D’Hara. There were bigger and more important conquests to be made elsewhere. That, in large part, and not the walls, was what had kept the place safe from conquest. It also meant that the defenses had never really been tested in the heat of battle.
For Hannis Arc, it was not a matter of conquest, but a matter of respect. He should not need to conquer people he already considered his subjects. They seemed to be unclear on that point. He intended to make it clear to them.
“You dare to close the gates to the city?” Hannis Arc called up to the man in simple robes standing with both hands resting on the edge of the wall.
“We mean you and your people no ill will,” the man called down, “but there have been rumors of terrible atrocities being visited on other places. As the mayor of Drendon Falls I must think first of the safety of the people of my city. We make no judgment against you, sir, and certainly intend no offense, but we must err on the side of safety and keep our gates closed.”
Hannis Arc glanced over at Emperor Sulachan, the glow of his spirit twisting the face of his long-dead worldly form into a grim smile.
Hannis Arc looked back up at the mayor on the wall. “I sent people on ahead from other cities with instructions that they speak to you of that very matter–the safety of your people. They were to inform you of your fate should you and the people of your city not bow down and show proper respect.”
The man on the wall spread his arms. “We deeply respect all people, and we respect them all equally. We do not want war.”
“War!” Hannis Arc exclaimed with a grunt of a laugh. “This is not a war.” He looked around, feigning incredulity. “There is no war. The war is long over. This is a matter of rule. It is a matter of allegiance to the D’Haran Empire.”
“We are loyal to the D’Haran Empire,” the man insisted.