Kahlan realized that she was putting pressure on Shale’s arm to draw her back. She eased up on the pressure to let her go farther forward. The sorceress needed to know what they were really facing. They had to let her get a little closer.
Shale’s jaw fell open as inky black shapes swept by, close, in the gloom on the other side of that dark wall. Kahlan knew they were specters in the deep, the dead in their lair. The swirl of inky shapes was at first bewitching, but Kahlan knew better.
She felt overwhelmed by the darkness and then began to feel that old sense of longing for what lay beyond. She heard voices murmur her name, calling to her. Kahlan knew they would be calling to Richard by name. By the way that Shale’s eyes opened wider, she knew they were calling to her by name as well. Those thousands of distant voices of the souls beyond were the buzzing they had heard at first. Now, each of those sounds resolved into uncountable individual voices, the appeals of the dead.
When Shale cried out and tried to lift her arms toward the dark wall, Richard and Kahlan had to forcefully pull her arms back. She let out a long, mournful wail. As they pulled the sorceress back, she struggled to reach out toward the dead, to get to them, trying to tear herself out of Richard’s and Kahlan’s arms. As they dragged her back, she dug in her heels, not wanting to be pulled away from what she saw.
When they were far enough back, Shale sagged in their arms, weeping. Knowing the agony of what she had seen, Kahlan felt a pang of sadness for her. She wished they hadn’t had to show it to her, but she needed to see it to truly understand. Richard and Kahlan had to continue struggling, pulling the sorceress back away from the wall of death.
When they were far enough back, to where Vika waited, Shale finally grasped the magnitude of what she had seen and reacted in horror to what she had tried to do. As she fell to tears, Kahlan took the sorceress in her arms.
“Think of something else,” Kahlan told her. “Shale, listen to me. You have to think of something else. Try to remember every town you passed through on your way to come to the People’s Palace. Think. Try to remember them in order.”
After a few moments Shale pushed back and swallowed. “I’m all right.”
Hooking her arm through Shale’s to be safe, Kahlan ushered her back away until they reached the others.
She finally stood on her own, wiping tears from her cheeks. “I’ve never in my life felt magic that powerful.”
“It’s not something pleasant, that’s for sure,” Richard said. “I have absolutely no idea why it’s here. All I can tell you is that it shouldn’t be. As far as I know, there is no one powerful enough to call up that boundary. I’m sorry for what you saw in there, but I felt that you needed to see it, feel it, for yourself.”
Shale stared in wonder at him. She looked too stunned to speak. Kahlan knew, though, that it wasn’t the world of the dead that had her looking so shocked. It was something else.
The sorceress abruptly reached out and put fingers to Richard’s temples. “Hold still.”
Richard turned a worried glance toward Kahlan, as if to ask what to do.
“Do as she asks,” Kahlan said. “Hold still.”
From not far away, the Mord-Sith, looking in ill humor, all watched. They didn’t particularly like anyone but Kahlan touching Lord Rahl. It aroused their protective instincts. Kahlan held a hand out low in their direction, letting them know it was all right and to stand down.
All at once, Shale drew both hands back with a gasp, as if the touch had burned her fingers. She took a step back away from Richard, clearly in fear.
Kahlan was alarmed by her reaction. “What is it?”
Shale’s terrified eyes looked from Kahlan back to Richard.
“Shale,” Kahlan asked again, “what is it that you sense?”
Shale blinked at her. “It’s him.”
Both Richard and Kahlan shared a bewildered look.
“What are you talking about?” Kahlan asked. “What’s him?”
Shale gathered her long, dark hair together and held it in both fists. She drew her lower lip through her teeth.
Her face had gone ashen. “It’s his.”
Growing impatient, Kahlan made a face. “His what?”
She hesitated. “The boundary. It’s Lord Rahl’s magic.”
Richard closed the distance to the sorceress and grabbed her by an arm. “What are you talking about?”
“You created this, this …” She waggled a hand toward where they had just been. “… this boundary. This fracture in the world of life. This opening into the world of death. It’s your magic that created it. I can feel it. I can feel your gift in its composition. You did this.”
35
Richard gritted his teeth as he tightened his grip on her arm. “What are you talking about? What do you mean I’m doing it?”
Shale swallowed at the fire in his eyes. “As a sorceress I can sense a person’s individual gift, much the way you can recognize a person by their voice, or their eyes. Your gift, like everyone’s gift, has a unique feel to it, except yours is more recognizable and distinctive to me than most. The gift that empowers that wall of death, that boundary as you call it, is your gift.”
Richard stared at her for the longest time. “That’s impossible. I don’t have any idea how to create such a thing,” he finally said.
Shale pulled her arm back. “I didn’t say you did. But the feel of your gift is unmistakable to me. It is your gift that brought up that boundary wall.”
Richard growled in frustration. “It can’t be. I would have no idea how to do such a thing.”
“It’s in your blood,” Kahlan told him.
They all turned to her. “Your grandfather created the original boundaries,” she explained. “He’s the only one who could have. The awareness of the organic process involved with using his gift to create the boundaries must have somehow, in some way, been passed on to you along with his gift. You are a powerful and gifted war wizard, in many ways one of the most talented ever to live. Although you have never created a boundary before, the ability to do so is surely inborn in you.”
Richard pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to get a grip on the anger clearly boiling right at the surface. His head finally came up and he tried hard to maintain his composure.
“All right, let’s say that I have the inherent ability. Fine. But I didn’t do it. I would know if I used my gift to create something this profound.”
“I think that has to be true,” Shale agreed. “But that means that someone else used your gift to pull up that curtain of death across our path.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “If I didn’t do it, then who could have?”
Shale looked at a loss to explain it. “I’m sorry, Lord Rahl, but until now, if I hadn’t felt it myself—with my own gift—I would never have imagined such a thing was even possible. But then again, having been raised in the Northern Waste, my knowledge of the gift and all its capabilities is limited to what I learned from my father and mother. All I can say is that it has to be that someone powerful is usurping your gift.
“I can only imagine that it would take great power to do such a thing. You said there is no longer anyone powerful enough to do such a thing. But you told me before that gifted people can join their abilities together in order to do what none of them could do alone. Remember?”
His fists on his hips, he nodded. He stared at the sorceress for a time, his sense of reason finally rising up through his anger. He cooled considerably.
“That has to be the explanation. It has to be gifted people joining their power to be able to do this. That means that we’re likely not dealing with a single gifted person, but a group of them.”
“One gifted person, or a group, it has been done.” Kahlan spread her arms in frustration. “Either way, at this point the more relevant question is why would they do such a thing?”