After a moment of total darkness and dead silence once all the burning embers were gone, the light spheres around the edge of the room slowly began to brighten again. In the faint greenish glow, she could see that all the corpses were still hanging throughout the room. She had thought they might have been ripped to shreds by the ravenous creatures or burned to cinders in the flames, but they looked untouched. Apparently, the beasts had only come for the living and the flash of fire was too brief to consume the bodies.
But the fire had incinerated the creatures, burning them to ash. It left behind the stench of sulfur.
“What were those things?” Vale asked in a panting whisper.
Kahlan knew what they were but was afraid to say it out loud.
“Where did he go?” Rikka asked in a heated voice as she and the others raced around, searching among the forest of bodies for the witch man.
Cassia dropped to the floor to look under all the hanging corpses to see if Michec was hiding behind one of them, perhaps in the distance. She finally jumped back up.
“I don’t see him anywhere.”
Shale raced up, coming in protectively close to Kahlan.
“What in the world were those things?” Nyda asked as she worked to catch her breath. “I’ve had nightmares that haven’t been as scary as that.”
Shale cast a sidelong look at Kahlan. “I can only conjure snakes. Apparently, the witch man has the power to conjure demons.”
“Demons! Like from the underworld?” Nyda shook her head. “That can’t be true.”
“I’ve seen such things before,” Kahlan said.
Nyda looked incredulous. “Where?”
“In the world of the dead,” Kahlan finally told them in a troubled voice.
“You can’t be serious,” Shale said.
They all looked at Kahlan expectantly, awaiting more of an explanation.
“They’re called soul eaters.”
“Soul eaters!” Berdine exclaimed. “How could Michec bring demons from the underworld into the world of life?” She swept an arm out. “And what happened to them at the end? It was like they were suddenly exploded and burned to cinders.”
“I have no idea,” Kahlan said. “But from the smell of sulfur it seems clear to me that Michec somehow opened the veil enough to pull those things into this world to do his bidding.”
“It doesn’t matter, now. They’re gone.” Vika grabbed Kahlan’s arm. “We have to help Lord Rahl. He healed all of us. We have to help him.”
When a last, quick check around the room confirmed that Michec was nowhere to be seen and they knew that he wasn’t about to set upon them again, Kahlan rushed over to Richard, dropping to her knees to see if he had started breathing yet. She was alarmed when she found that not only wasn’t he breathing, he had no pulse.
“Richard!” She pounded his chest with her fist. “Richard!”
Shale leaned in close. She put a hand on his forehead, closed her eyes, and was silent for a moment.
The sorceress at last drew her hand back as if the touch had burned her fingers. She looked up at Kahlan, her eyes reflecting her horror. “He’s … gone.”
The Mord-Sith stared at her in stunned silence.
“He’s not gone,” Kahlan insisted. “He just needs our help to find his way back.”
Shale’s eyebrows lifted in disbelief. “From the dead? How do we help him do that?”
“He’s not dead.” Kahlan swallowed back her rising sense of panic as a vision of her children never knowing their father flashed through her mind. “He’s just lost.”
Shale gave the Mord-Sith watching her a troubled look before she looked back at Kahlan. “And how do you propose that we get him … unlost?”
12
Kahlan pressed her fingertips to her forehead as she frantically ran through memories and what she knew of the underworld, trying to come up with a way to get Richard back from that dark place. She stubbornly refused to believe the finality of it. She couldn’t let herself believe the finality of it. But while she believed it might be possible to get him back, she also knew that the window to do so—even if it still existed—was rapidly closing.
At last, her head came up. She looked to all the faces watching her.
“The Law of Nines. Richard said that the Law of Nines is a trigger for magic.”
Shale threw her hands up. “How is that supposed to help us? He is with the good spirits, now. He is beyond what we can do with magic.”
“But for a precious bit of time, he still has a link here, in this world.” Kahlan gestured. “Everyone gather around. Shale, you go on the other side of him and take his hand. I’ll take this one.” She urgently motioned the Mord-Sith to all come in closer. “The rest of you, kneel down around him and hold hands between Shale and me. We need to link us all together with Richard between me and Shale.”
While they clearly didn’t understand what it was that Kahlan thought they could do, they all gathered around Richard anyway, taking up each other’s hands even though they all looked confused as to why they were doing it, hoping that somehow she knew some secret solution and could do what none of them could imagine.
“We all need to bow our heads and close our eyes,” Kahlan told them.
Vale leaned in expectantly. “And then what?”
“And then … think about Richard. Think about how much we all want him back. How much we all need him back.”
The Mord-Sith shared skeptical looks.
Kahlan thought of something else. She released his hand and picked up the Sword of Truth. She placed the hilt in his hand, then put her hand over the other side and intertwined her fingers with Richard’s, locking their hands together around the hilt of the sword. The word “TRUTH” on her side pressed into her palm. She knew that the same word on the other side was pressing into Richard’s palm. That physical sensation was intimately familiar to both of them. More than that, the Sword of Truth was an ancient weapon with unfathomable magic. She hoped that magic would also help guide Richard back to them.
Tears ran down Vika’s cheeks as she watched Kahlan position the sword. “If we don’t get him back, I will never forgive myself. He did this for me. He came after me. I told him not to, but he did it anyway. He shouldn’t have. I wish Michec had killed me, then Lord Rahl would not have done what he did and he would be here, alive, and with you all. He would be where he belongs.”
“No, he wouldn’t,” Kahlan said, knowing how distraught the Mord-Sith would have to be to show such emotion. “None of us would be here. We would all be dead.”
Vika wiped a tear back from her cheek. “What are you talking about?”
“When Richard found out that Michec had taken you and that he was here at the People’s Palace, he wanted to get you back, but more than that, he knew as the Lord Rahl that we couldn’t leave the witch man here when we leave for the Keep. You, of all people, know what Michec is capable of. He was devoted to Darken Rahl and hated that Richard was now the Lord Rahl. His ambition has no bounds. There is no telling what he might have done, but we do know that he would have worked to defeat all we have fought for. He has the power to undo all the good we have worked to bring about.
“We had to go after that monster. Yes, Richard wanted to rescue you, but he would have gone after Michec even if you were already dead. He had to. We came down here, into Michec’s lair, and he was somehow able to capture us. That’s not your fault. Richard was going after Michec one way or another, with you or without you.”
“Yes but if I had already been dead—”
“Then you couldn’t have saved us.” Kahlan was shaking her head. “Don’t you see? All the rest of us would have been captured whether or not you were alive. But since you were still alive, you were able to interrupt Michec when he was about to start skinning me alive. That gave Richard time to stop him. You saved our lives, Vika.”