He heard the faint sound of voices—the countless voices of the dead from beyond the veil. As he sank into that dark void, swirling masses of souls swept through a darkness blacker than black and began to surround him. In that void, ghostly arms and writhing fingers reached for him. Hints of light wheeled around him. He held on to Vika, knowing that she was seeing the same thing.
Richard did his best to ignore the voices and the reaching hands. He did his best not to recognize the spectral faces. He couldn’t afford the distraction of familiar voices, familiar faces, familiar emotions and longing.
Despite his best efforts, those he had killed, evil people who fought in the world of life for the cause of death, smiled out at him from the darkness as they swept in closer, eager for the chance to rip and tear at his soul. Claws sank painfully into his spirit. As they tried to drag him down among them, Richard held onto an awareness of the light from above, of the light of Kahlan’s soul and those with her beyond the veil. As he did, evil lost its grip on him and sank away. He pulled Vika up with him, away from the terrible evil that lusted for them both.
As they rose up through endless darkness, the multitude of souls appeared to be nothing more than the soft flickers of stars massing and moving together like folds of gossamer in a faint breeze, rippling, twisting, rolling as one insubstantial mass. Even as they revolved around him, a curtain of eternal inhabitants of darkness, they knew he did not belong.
But they wanted him to.
They whispered to him, promising him the end of pain, the end of sorrow, the end of a life of constant struggle. They whispered to Vika as well.
He had but to let himself accept what was all around him.
He knew that they were also appealing to Vika to join them in their eternal rest. He knew how much those whispers and tender touches would lure her toward their world for all eternity. He knew how she ached to accept their call.
Richard circled a comforting arm around her shoulders as she gazed about in wonder, the pain of the world of life far distant. In this dark world, she was free of the mortal pain of her injuries, even if her physical form was not yet free of those injuries. Richard held her close, silently reassuring her that he was with her, not letting her feel alone.
When she listened to him, the darkness shifted, the souls twisting away as if in eddies from a current sweeping past, carrying them with it. Richard held Vika close as the two of them drifted through layers of darkness teeming with spirits. Those streams of darkness carried them through rolling undercurrents formed out of nothing. All the time the soft glowing mass of souls followed along, distant, hesitant, yet drawn to them, these alien beings in their world. It was bewitchingly beautiful and terrifying all at the same time.
Richard had to remind himself continually of Kahlan’s hand in his, still back there beyond the veil in the world of life, and his love for her. She and the other souls there with her were his anchor—and Vika’s anchor—to the world back beyond the veil.
He had to remind himself of their two children back in the world of life. The twins needed him if they were to be born and their Graces were to be completed. And they all needed Vika. He wanted more than anything to be back with Kahlan, and with her unborn babies.
To do that, he needed to get on with the job at hand.
As Vika turned to him, not knowing what to do, not knowing what choice to make, he reached into himself to the depths of his gift, into the network of connections linking his magic to his soul, linking it to the world of life, searching for the exact gossamer threads he needed.
At the same time, he reached into Vika with his gift. Were they still in the world of life, she would have let out a gasp at the power of it.
9
Kahlan, her eyes closed, her head bowed, tried to focus her thoughts on Vika, hoping it would somehow help Richard heal her and at the same time keep her grounded in the world of life. Berdine, to Kahlan’s left, held her hand in a tight grip that revealed her fears. Kahlan knew that, like her, they were all terrified by what Richard was doing. It involved magic that none of them understood and they all feared. Kahlan was only obliquely familiar with it, and her understanding of it was in large part theory. Sometimes, she had to put her trust in Richard even when she greatly feared what he was doing.
As the room grew deadly quiet, she couldn’t seem to calm her anxiety.
In that silence, Kahlan heard a sound that didn’t belong.
Oddly enough, it sounded like something wet.
With sudden realization of what it was, she opened her eyes, despite Richard’s instructions, and glanced back over her shoulder. In the dim, greenish light beyond the forest of hanging corpses, she saw dark shapes running as yet more scribbles were forming in the air.
“Richard!” When he didn’t respond, she screamed his name again.
Richard slumped, partly bent over on his side, one hand reaching back to hold hers, the other holding Vika’s hand. Kahlan saw, then, that Vika had stopped breathing. She urgently pulled away from Berdine to put both hands on the side of Richard’s chest, shoving him, trying to wake him from his state of deep concentration.
With a jolt of horror she realized that Richard wasn’t breathing, either. She was momentarily confused, unable to understand why he would not be breathing.
If she lost him because she went along with his crazy idea, she would never forgive herself. The twins would never forgive her.
Despite her worry for him, there was no time to figure it out. She had to do something about the dire threat coming into their world from across the room. As she sprang to her feet, she stole a quick glance back to check that the sword was there at Richard’s left hip. Once she saw it, she dropped down and grabbed the hilt. The blade rang, hot with rage, as she yanked it free of the scabbard. She knew that rage all too well.
“Shale!” Over on the other side of the still Vika, the woman’s head was bowed, her eyes closed. “Shale!”
The sorceress’s head jerked up. “What—”
More of the dark, wet shapes materialized out of nowhere to rush forward, their bodies steaming as they came around the hanging corpses. Clear, gelatinous blobs slid off them and splashed across the floor. She realized that was the wet sound she had heard at first.
“Do something!” Kahlan screamed at the sorceress in order to be heard over the sudden sound of murderous shrieks and howls from the Glee, excited at finding her vulnerable with no witch man to stop them.
One of the monsters, apparently the one she had heard materialize first, was out well ahead of the others. She leaped back as wicked claws swiped at her, first one and then the other in rapid succession. Kahlan had been trained in the use of a sword growing up. She reacted instinctively. She swung the sword around and brought it down with all her might, lopping off the second arm that had taken a swipe at her, severing it between wrist and elbow.
The creature recoiled in surprise and pain, drawing back the stump. In that seemingly frozen instant, she immediately used the opening to drive the blade through its chest before it could use its other claw on her. The tall, dark shape dropped to its knees. The sword, still through its body and jutting out its back, was pulled down and almost out of her hands as the creature sank to the floor, already dead. Kahlan grunted with the effort of putting her boot against it and pulling the blade back out as the dark shape toppled over.
Dozens more Glee came charging out from among all the hanging bodies. Bloody sword in hand, Kahlan turned to the sorceress, now alert and on her feet.
“Do something! Richard’s not breathing! He can’t help! I can’t stop them all! You have to do something!”