“Kahlan’s right,” Shale said. “I think it was that Law of Nines thing he told us about. It caused a change in the outcome. The nine of us together had an effect on what would otherwise have happened.”
Kahlan leaned in a little toward the distraught Mord-Sith. “That’s why Richard came after you: because we need you. Your life is important to all of us. We all need each other. There is power in the nine of us together. I thought he was only going to the cusp of the underworld to help you somehow, but for whatever reason, he crossed over.”
“He came after me,” Vika said, fighting to hold back her tears. “That’s why he crossed over. He did it to heal me.”
Kahlan gave her a hurried nod. “He saved you for a reason. Now, we need to save him.”
“How?” Shale pressed, frantic for some kind of reason to believe it could really work. “He crossed over through the veil. We all know what that means. Dead is dead. How in the world do you propose to bring him back from the dead?”
“Dead is not always as dead as you might think.” Kahlan gritted her teeth against the fear of giving in to the finality of such thinking. “Richard is not dead. Not yet. Not with finality. He has done this before. He’s just lost. There is no sense of direction or scale in the underworld. It’s eternal in every direction. He will be trying to come back to us now that he is finished with what he needed to do there, but he needs the light of our souls to find his way back.”
“But how can we reveal our souls to him when he’s on the other side of the veil?” Shale asked.
“Like I said before, Richard told us that the Law of Nines is a trigger for magic of great power.”
Shale looked far from satisfied. “But how—”
“Enough! We’re wasting what precious little time we have! Bow your heads,” Kahlan ordered, her patience at an end, “and give him a way back before he is gone too long and can’t ever return.”
A worried Berdine glanced over at Richard. “Are you sure he hasn’t already been gone too long?”
“Do it!” Kahlan yelled, her frantic fear powering her voice. “Do it now. Think of Richard and how much he means to each one of you and how much we all need him back. We need to show him the light of our lives on this side to guide him back through the veil. He is the completing link for the Law of Nines, the last one that makes nine of us. He is the Lord Rahl. Our bond to him as the Lord Rahl is our connection to him. Now use it.
“Rikka, Nyda, Cassia, Vale, Berdine, Vika, you have all been to the cusp before. Do that now if you can so that you can bring us all closer to that world.”
When Kahlan was sure that all of the rest of them were following her orders, she finally bowed her own head.
She refused to allow herself to fear it wouldn’t work. Richard would see the light of their souls on their side of the veil and it would help guide him back. She knew it would.
Just before she let herself slip into the memory of what it was like in that other place, she had a last twinge of fear that Michec might show up and, seeing them all vulnerable, slaughter every last one of them right then and there where they were kneeling.
Among the corpses, the room was dead quiet as she brought up a memory of the world of the dead, and her love for Richard, the father of her two children. Three, she corrected herself. One was gone now, but the twins were still growing in her.
She remembered, then, the first time she knelt before him and swore on her life to protect him. She had been the first ever to swear loyalty to him.
Her breathing along with everyone else’s slowed almost to a stop.
13
Kahlan seemed lost in a quiet, lonely place on the fringes of panic when she heard Richard gasp in a breath.
She looked up into the life in his gray eyes, startled at him returning so abruptly. He smiled at her, too busy getting his breath to speak right then. Her fears, which she had been keeping under tight rein, were unexpectedly dispelled. Joy rushed in to displace despair.
Kahlan needed something more than words, though. She fell on him where he sat, holding him tight, feeling the life in him as his big arm came around to embrace her and pull her tight against him. It was salvation, redeeming her as she had been about to give up all hope.
“Lord Rahl!” Berdine squealed. “You’re back! You’re really back!”
He nodded, still panting.
Shale looked astonished. “How are you here? How is this possible?” The way she said it made it sound as if his return was almost unjust, a violation of everything she believed.
Richard swallowed, still catching his breath. He looked around at the forest of dead bodies, the empty vessels for souls now gone, perhaps, Kahlan thought, seeing them in a new and sympathetic light.
“I was lost. It’s beyond dark, there.” His haunted tone reflected everything behind those words. “I didn’t know where the veil was, or how to find my way back. Then I saw the cluster of light of your souls, the glimmer of your lives gathered together around me to show me the way back. That was what I needed.”
Berdine shook a finger at Kahlan. “That’s just what she said would bring you back!”
Richard chuckled. “I’m glad you listened to her. You all brought me back. Thank you.”
“The Law of Nines was the key,” Kahlan said.
Richard nodded, still drawing deep breaths. “It was the trigger for magic that made it work.”
Shale leaned in, looking bewildered to see him alive after being so clearly dead. She held up her wrists before him.
“We’re healed.” It sounded like an indictment. “Not just Vika. Kahlan and my wrists, and her face—we are all healed.”
Richard nodded. “I know. I healed Vika, then I healed the rest of us as well.” He ran a finger down Kahlan’s once bruised and swollen cheek and then held up his own wrists to show them that they, too, were no longer cut and bleeding.
Shale seemed to be bursting with questions. She started one, only to stop and start a different one. Finally she was able to settle on one and get it out.
“Lord Rahl, how could you have healed Vika? Her wounds were well beyond healing, but even if they hadn’t been quite so horrific and had been within the realm of the possible for healing, it would have taken many days to do such a complex healing. How is it possible that you healed her of such grievous wounds in the blink of an eye?”
Richard gazed into her eyes, looking for a long time as if gazing into her soul. “It was far more than the blink of an eye. The underworld is eternal. It never ends, so there is no such thing as time there. I could have taken months to heal her for all I know—there is no way to tell. In fact, it felt in many ways that I was there for that long. But here, despite how long I was there, only moments had passed. That was how my body survived until my soul could return. I was still connected to it through the Grace. There, those moments are an eternity that gave me the time to do what I needed to do. In a way, I was working in both worlds at the same time.”
The answer appeared to be worse than no answer to the sorceress. “Working in both worlds?” Shale pressed a hand to her forehead, looking exasperated as she tried to imagine the unimaginable. She pressed her palms against the side of her head, elbows up, looking like she feared she was descending into madness. “How is that even remotely possible?”
Richard shook his head as he sighed. “The only way I can begin to explain it is that there, in the underworld, I’m able to see and touch the threads of my gift in ways that I never could here, in this world. You might say that the lines of the Grace are revealed to me when I’m there.