The people inside screamed and shrieked as they ran, trying to find a place to hide. Shun-tuk were skilled at finding hiding souls. Trapped inside the city walls, they were run down by the flood of half-naked Shun-tuk racing in through the gaping hole in the wall. The half people, now in a frenzy to have a soul for themselves, fell on the people of Drendon Falls and started ripping into them with their teeth.
For those who now thought to change allegiance and tried to bow down to Lord Arc, it was too late. They had been given a chance to bow down and they had not taken it. Now, even as they fell to their knees, crying out for mercy, they would serve him in a different manner. They would serve as examples.
Hannis Arc turned to the tattered group of prisoners, both men and women, all filthy with dust and dirt. He gestured with a finger and the rope binding their wrists parted. Their gags fell away.
“Go on to the People’s Palace and the places along the way. Tell them what is coming, and that their only hope of salvation is to bow down and swear allegiance to Lord Arc.”
The group fell to their knees, wailing with relief. They all crowded in around him, taking his robes in trembling fingers, kissing the cloth, thanking him for his mercy. They all swore undying loyalty to him.
Hannis Arc was gratified to have such a show of respect.
“All right. That’s enough. Be on your way.”
They all scrambled to their feet and ran to do his bidding.
CHAPTER 15
Uncountable arms reached out of the darkness, clawing the air, trying to catch something, anything. Hands all around tried to touch her, to make contact. Despite how desperately they stretched and raked the air, they could not reach her.
Even with her eyes closed, Nicci could see all the arms and fingers wriggling like a thousand snakes. The hiss of the dead only added to the sense of death closing in around her. Out beyond the walls of arms she could hear the screams of others.
She knew who these souls were. She recognized them.
They were the souls of those she had killed.
Nicci lifted a hand before her, pushing back the ones in front, reaching for her, the ones who had deserved to die but in their hatred for life didn’t fully realize they were dead. Nicci had no fear of them catching hold of her. These were not demons, and not able to do such things as snatch the living to drag them down.
They were the guilty upon whom she had visited justice.
They could no longer touch her.
Before her, in her mind’s eye, she kept the soft light of Kahlan’s spirit safe from those things that wanted to drag her back in among them.
Nicci knew that the dark ones wanted Kahlan back.
Fortunately, Richard had drawn Sulachan’s minions to himself, drawing them away from Kahlan’s spirit.
Unfortunately, those dark demons wrapped him tightly in their dark wings so that Nicci had no hope of finding him on her own. She had searched beyond the veil before and had found spirits, but she would not be able to find Richard.
Sulachan intended for him never to be found. Though Nicci had considerable power, she was not the match for such evil, especially in his realm.
The task before her seemed impossible. The darkness was thick with souls, like grains of black sand on a beach at midnight, all flowing and shifting constantly as inky waves rolled in and tumbled the sand around. Those souls crowded in from every direction, eddies of them swirling around her and making it impossible to see beyond them. Whenever she parted those in her way, there were only more.
As she approached and they saw her, they twisted and turned, shying away from her. She knew what they were doing. She had seen them before. They recognized that she didn’t belong, that she had invaded their peace, that she was a dark force in a world of darkness.
She was out of place, and they were trying to push her back out of eternity to the terror of that momentary spark that was life. They didn’t like to be reminded of what they could not have again. They wanted to be left in peace to slowly forget.
In the unfamiliar light of Kahlan’s soul, those swirling masses flowed through the darkness like dense schools of fish. Endless masses of dark forms made up of millions of individuals billowed and spiraled in to keep Nicci from that light. They were trying to protect that light from Nicci’s darkness.
While she felt like weeping at the beauty of that light, she needed to find her way, and she was being swamped by souls that occupied the darkness. She feared that it was an impossible task to search for a particular grain of sand on that endless, black beach.
Nicci felt gentle hands rest on her shoulders.
It was the witch woman, standing behind her, putting her hands on Nicci’s shoulders.
When she did, the nature of the darkness shifted, the souls swirling and whirling in a mad surge as they parted and spiraled back. Nicci smiled inwardly at again seeing the guiding light of Kahlan’s soul in the center of that Grace constructed of her blood. From that single drop of Richard’s blood in the center, the eternal darkness formed into twisting flows moving gracefully through nothingness.
Nicci realized that the witch woman was using the flow of time to reveal the way through the void. The layers of darkness teeming with spirits folded and turned, rolling over and through itself in undercurrents formed out of nothing, reminding her of strands of smoke curling and billowing through still air. Or blood dripping into still, clear water.
It was as terrifying as it was bewitching and beautiful.
And then, following that flow the witch woman was feeding into her, the light of a soul seemed to appear along those lines out of the black forever. It was a soul Nicci recognized all too well.
It was the soul of the wizard she had killed. It was his power she had taken into her own.
It had been done when she became a Sister of the Dark.
It was something that was beyond forgiving.
The light of the spirit diffused and then consolidated into a glowing form as it confronted her, stopping her progress. She knew that spirits used their light to take a recognizable form.
Nicci didn’t know what to do. What could she do? There was no way she could ask forgiveness. She had no right.
The light of the spirit reached out and touched her, then. Touched her soul. In that instant, in that timeless connection, she felt everything he would say to her.
She wept with the beauty of it all. He was at peace. He told her that although she had taken it in the cause of evil, in the end she had done more good with his gift than he ever would have. Although what she had done was an injustice, she had gone on to do the one thing that gave him peace. She had chosen to change, to fight evil, and to make up for all the harm she had done to others.
Nicci did not deserve forgiveness, and he understood that, too. He told her that he could not give her any such forgiveness, that it came from within herself, and that was all that mattered. She saw the beautiful light of his soul, and wept at what she had done to him.
He told her that she carried his gift, now, and he was with her in spirit, helping her new calling, in spirit. Her purpose was his, now. His gift was hers, now.
He ran a glowing, spirit hand down her hair as a father might while smiling down on a beloved daughter. It was a moment of such pure love, such pure acceptance, that it left her shaken and weeping with the beauty of it.
At that, he moved aside, holding out that glowing arm, and welcomed her onward, wishing her well in her mission to fight for the world of life, a cause he said was a noble use of the gift she was born with, and the gift she had taken up.
She felt drained, her emotions exhausted by the confrontation and the agony of sorrow that had only lasted a spark of time, but at the same time, in that eternal world, had lasted forever. She felt as if she knew him better than she ever had, knew herself better than she ever had.