Richard was surprised, but it was obviously something profoundly personal to her. He wondered why, but rather than asking her he deemed it best not to force the issue.
He laid the palm of his left hand over the hilt of his sword. When he did, he was surprised to feel the magic from the sword stirring, trying to join with him. He surmised it could be that the sword’s magic sensed his lingering rage at this evil man and all the horrific acts he had committed.
And then, as Richard looked over at the dead man staring back at him with dead eyes, he saw it again, a glint of something, some spark of light in those dead eyes that shouldn’t have been there.
In that instant, he envisioned the horrors starting all over again. He saw everything they had just won suddenly slipping away from them. He saw that threat to Kahlan and their children reawakening, as if Michec were somehow trying to strike out at them one last time from the world of the dead before he would sink away into its eternal darkness.
From somewhere deep within him, without Richard consciously summoning it, the primal rage of his birthright awakened. With his left hand still on the hilt of the sword, drawing on all the ancient power of the weapon, he cast his other hand out, opening his fist, instantly igniting wizard’s fire. The rotating bluish-white ball of flame shook the room with a reverberating boom as it exploded into existence. Seemingly at the same instant it came into being, it shot across the room, wailing with a piercing shriek as it lit the stone posts and all the stunned faces on its way to the source of Richard’s ire. The sound of it was deafening as it hurtled the short distance to that target and burst apart on impact, splashing sticky fire over the body of the witch man.
Wizard’s fire burned with a fierce intensity and purpose unlike any other fire. The roaring flames burned white hot at their center.
Shale wrinkled her nose at the stench of burning flesh. The Mord-Sith didn’t.
In mere moments, the soft tissue was consumed in the ferocious blaze. Once the soft tissue had burned away, the wizard’s fire continued to sink inward until it covered the bones, engulfing them in the savage flames until they, too, began to break apart and finally turn to ash and collapse into a brightly glowing heap. Only then did the fire, its work done, finally extinguish.
Everyone stood in stunned silence at what they had just witnessed. The heat from the wizard’s fire had even partly melted the stone wall behind where Michec had been slumped.
“I didn’t know you could do that,” Kahlan said in a soft voice as she stared at the aftermath.
Richard felt a bit stunned himself. “Neither did I.”
Shale looked shaken by what she had just seen. “I’ve heard whispered stories of such a thing. I never imagined I would live to see it with my own eyes.”
Richard stared at the pile of ash that was all that remained of a henchman for Darken Rahl, a witch man who had been determined to kill them all, glad it was finally over.
The sorceress turned to him with a grave expression. “How did you do it?”
Richard slowly shook his head as he stared at the still-glowing pile of ash and asked her a question instead. “Did you see that glint of light in his eyes?”
Shale was taken aback. “No.”
“I have no idea how I did it,” he finally told her. “When I saw a spark of light in his dead eyes, I simply acted.”
He knew that such an ability would be more than useful against the Glee, but it had all happened in an instant. He had absolutely no idea how he had brought it about.
After a moment of silence, Kahlan circled an arm around his waist. “Can we please get out of this wretched place?”
Richard smiled down at her as he looked into her beautiful green eyes. “Sure.”
“We can now safely be on our way to the Wizard’s Keep,” Shale said, still looking a bit shaken.
“We’ve been down here an awfully long time,” Cassia said. “We need to get some food.”
Berdine grinned. “I could eat.”
26
On their way out of the vast maze that was the complication, they passed between two columns at the end of the corridor and entered a sizable area with dozens of glass spheres in iron brackets lighting a formal stone floor made of black and white marble squares. The walls had decorative tiles. To each side there were a pair of white marble columns supporting tall arches with ornate carving. Richard knew that although it was a node, this one was a benign junction in the spell-form.
As the group crossed the large area and then passed between the two columns on the opposite side where the corridor continued on, something made Richard lag behind and then look back up over his left shoulder to where he could see through the tall arch to a part of the upper level where it crossed the lower one they were on.
A single Glee stood there in that gallery, looking down, watching. Somehow, Richard had known it would be there.
As the others continued on, carrying with them the soft murmur of conversation, Richard slowed to a stop and stared up at the dark figure. He realized that it hadn’t been watching all of them. It had only appeared to watch Richard. Its third eyelid blinked as they stared at each other.
Richard couldn’t help simply standing there, looking up at the still figure, the way it stood still looking down at him. He wondered if it could be the same individual he had seen on several previous occasions.
Almost as if in answer to the question in Richard’s mind, the Glee bowed its head. Richard was stunned to see it do so. It made no hostile move. It didn’t give him any other indication of its intentions, only that single bow, almost as if out of … respect.
And then it simply turned to scribbles and vanished back to its own world.
Left standing there staring up at an empty upper level, Richard had absolutely no idea what the sighting could possibly mean, but he felt a deep conviction that it had, in fact, been the same individual he had seen before. Of course, he had no way to know for sure. But if it really was the same one, he had now seen this particular Glee three times. The previous time it had spread its claws to show him that they were webbed. This time, it didn’t. It bowed its head instead. On none of those occasions had it shown any sign that it intended to attack.
If anything, Richard felt that on each occasion it had simply been observing him. Each time Richard had spotted the lone Glee, it had been after he had killed large numbers of its kind. And yet it did not try to attack him. This time, though, it showed up after they had killed the witch man. The thought occurred to him that not only was it a witch man, but a witch man who had made some kind of pact with the Golden Goddess.
He wondered if it could be an observer for the Golden Goddess, reporting back on any observed weakness. So far, all it had to report was a lot of dead Glee and now a dead witch.
Another thought occurred to him that ran a chill up his spine. It made him momentarily stop dead.
“Richard?”
He blinked and looked down at the corridor to see Kahlan standing there, turned halfway back, waiting for him.
He immediately trotted to catch up with her. As exhausted as she was, she managed to flash him her special smile. As exhausted as he was, he couldn’t help returning a smile, even if he didn’t think he could in any way match the radiance of hers. It warmed his heart to see that smile, her beautiful face, the love in her eyes.
He took her hand and hurried to catch up with the others at a shorter archway complex held up by polished but dusty marble pillars to either side. Just beyond were four openings in a wall of rough stone.
“Which way, Lord Rahl?” Vika asked. The gash on her forehead had stopped bleeding, but her face was still a mask of blood. It matched her red leather.