Into Darkness Read online

  “I’m down here!” he yelled as loud as he could.

  He didn’t get a response, so he called out again, forcing himself to yell louder. He was feeling desperate as he fought back his growing panic. He called out again, louder yet.

  “Lord Rahl?” came a distant voice.

  “Berdine? Is that you?”

  “Yes!” The voice came closer. “Yes! It’s me! I’m here!”

  He heard people frantically talking. The sound came closer until he could make out individuals. Apparently, whoever was up above with Berdine was excited that they had gotten a response. Now that he knew there were people out there somewhere, he started squirming, thinking he might be able to work his way out.

  He soon realized, though, that it was simply impossible. The stone was packed in so tight that none of it would budge. He couldn’t make any of it move so much as an inch. He was stuck solid in the rubble.

  He began to remember his alarm as the entire palace above them had started to come down. Shota had somehow managed to touch off Subtractive Magic. The only way to prevent her from killing him had been to use a mix of Additive and Subtractive Magic to counter it. It had been his only chance. When those powers had come together, it had created a knifelike blast of Subtractive Magic that had cut all the way up through the palace and at the same time to the sides through the mountain under the palace.

  He hadn’t known that a witch woman could do such things. Apparently, from what Kahlan had been saying, a coven amplified her power and gave her additional abilities. For all of her assurances that she had no intention to harm them, she was quick to attack him with lethal power.

  He remembered, too, that gifted people could join their abilities to amplify their power. The joining of the power of all those witch women had obviously managed to bring forth the boundary. That alone was a demonstration of the power that Shota now had at her disposal.

  He could hardly believe that Shale had joined them. No, it wasn’t her doing, he reminded himself. She was being used. He remembered that Shota had said as much. He could tell by the empty stare that Shale was not acting on her own.

  “Lord Rahl!” Berdine’s voice was closer, and more desperate. Even so, it still seemed like it was some distance away. “Lord Rahl, are you still there?”

  “Mostly, I think. There is a big slab of floor, or ceiling, over the top of me. It created a pocket and kept me from being crushed. But my legs are encased in the rubble and I can’t move them. How long have I been stuck down here?”

  “This is the end of the second day,” came the response.

  Two days. Richard was stunned.

  “Is Kahlan with you?”

  This time the answer was slow in coming. “I’m afraid not. We haven’t been able to find anyone other than you.”

  That answer sent a shiver of panic and pain through his heart. She had to have escaped. He told himself that she had gotten out in time.

  “Who’s with you?” he called out.

  “All of us. When everything started collapsing, the falling ceiling toppled those big stone birds. They sheltered us from all the stone falling in long enough for all of us to run into the tunnels and escape. We only just made it in time. We had hoped you were right behind us. The entire palace fell into that underground room and with all the dust and falling debris we couldn’t see if all the witch women escaped.”

  Escaped with Kahlan, she meant. Richard didn’t know which would have been a worse fate—to have her die quickly, or have the witch women take her away to do what they intended. He knew that despite what Shota said, she was no longer willing to tolerate Richard and Kahlan being alive to disobey her wishes.

  “Part of the mountain collapsed off to the side,” Berdine called out. “We have a lot of town people up here with us. They are all helping.”

  He thought that was odd. “What do you mean, helping?”

  “Helping dig you out. We’ve all been working for two days to dig through the rubble, hoping to find you alive. We were not going to stop, but we were beginning to give up hope.”

  “I’m stuck down here.”

  “I know. But a lot of the town people came right away to help us. We’ve been digging inward from the section of the mountain that fell away. Your power cutting through the walls caused a big section of the mountain to slide away, so we’re digging in from the side. We’ve been searching, calling out, and digging for two days, day and night, hoping to find you. But a lot of the stone from the palace is in big, heavy chunks and some of it needs to be broken apart in order to move it out of the way. Now that we know you are alive, and where you are, we can concentrate on getting to you.”

  Richard let out a weary breath. He didn’t want to tell her that his head was bleeding, and he was dizzy. It felt like the dark world he was trapped in was spinning and tilting.

  “Don’t worry, Lord Rahl. We’re coming for you. Hold on. But I fear it will take some time.”

  Richard nodded, then realized they couldn’t see him nod. “I’ll wait right here.”

  “Lord Rahl, just try to relax. It will take us some time to get to you, but we won’t give up. I can promise you that.”

  Richard felt tears welling up for Kahlan and their children. He feared to think what had happened to her.

  For a moment, he felt overwhelmed by all of the insurmountable problems. In that instant, he thought that it would be better to just give up.

  And then, he could feel his mind slipping into darkness deeper than the darkness of where he lay.

  26

  Richard heard people grunting with effort. And then, as a large chunk of stone was rolled aside, his dark hole was suddenly lit by a small shaft of light. It made him squint in the sudden brightness.

  “Lord Rahl!” He recognized Vika’s voice, and he could hear the desperation in it. “Lord Rahl!”

  “I’m still here.”

  “Thank the good spirits,” she murmured.

  Richard briefly thought to ask her if the good spirits were up there helping them dig.

  “Water,” he called in a weak voice, instead. “Can you get me some water?”

  “Water? Yes, we will get some,” Vika said. “We’ve made a tunnel of sorts to get to you. It shouldn’t be long before we have you out. Just hold on, Lord Rahl. We’ll have you out soon.”

  “I need water,” he mumbled.

  “Rikka is running to get some. Hold on.”

  He could hear people grunting as they either lifted stone out of the way if it was small enough to handle, or rolled it back if it was too big and heavy to pick up. Hammers rang out against steel chisels as men tried to break up the larger pieces in their path. Others shouted instructions as they worked. Richard realized that he could hear a surprisingly large number of voices.

  The light coming into his cavity in the rubble lit what he thought would be his grave with even more light as the people frantically worked to open the way in to reach him. The shaft of light revealed all the dust swirling around him. Richard wondered if they would be too late. He could feel himself losing the strength to remain conscious. They had told him that he had been there for two days. Stuck in the dusty space under the slab without water, it seemed like forever.

  From time to time he heard things above him collapse and large blocks tumble down the hill of debris. It sounded like more walls might occasionally be falling in, or maybe ceilings that had little support might finally have given way—or were starting to give way. He was well aware that if things shifted wrong, or something big enough were to fall, he would be crushed. The thought of that made his chest tighten with the embrace of panic. Every time he heard stone above groan, or fall, he held his breath, waiting for the end.

  He constantly had to fight back dread at being trapped under a mountain of rubble, never to get out. To keep his mind from wandering into frightening thoughts, he remembered Kahlan’s face, trying to recall every detail.

  Suddenly, a hand touched his shoulder. He jumped right out of his memory. />
  “Lord Rahl, it’s me,” Vika said.

  She was close. Grunting and panting, she had somehow squirmed her way through the little tunnel they had made to his grave.

  Richard reached up and put a hand over hers. It was bloody from digging through the rough, jagged stone chunks and rubble.

  “I’m here,” she said, groaning with the effort of getting in close enough. He could hear her pulling something up along her body. “I brought you a waterskin.”

  He squeezed her hand. “Today, Vika, you are my favorite. Be sure to tell Berdine.”

  Vika laughed a little as she pulled her hand back. She pulled the waterskin the rest of the way up along her body and then pushed it through the final part of the opening, which was barely big enough for her arm. Once it was in, she pushed her arm back through and grabbed his hand. He didn’t know if she was reassuring him, or herself, but he held on to the hand as he guzzled water while holding the waterskin with his other.

  “Take it easy. Don’t drink it all at once or it will make you sick.”

  Richard nodded and pulled it away to get his breath.

  “I have to go,” she said. “We need to make this hole big enough to pull you out.”

  Richard felt too weak to answer, so he didn’t. Vika huffed as she worked her way back out of the tight hole. As soon as she was back out, the work resumed. He could hear people shouting and groaning with effort as they worked.

  Richard took another drink, then had to rest again with the half-empty waterskin on his chest. It moved slowly up and down with his shallow breathing. The pull of the darkness was too great, and it gently took him again.

  He was awakened by hands gripping his shirt and pulling on him. He cried out as they tugged, because his legs were trapped and it hurt when they tried to pull him. A wiry man wormed his way in under the slab beside Richard. His head was facing Richard’s feet.

  “Hold on, Lord Rahl. Let me see if I can free up your legs so we can pull you out.”

  He worked as quickly as he could, pulling the tightly packed rock and rubble out from around Richard’s legs. He found a shallow place to the side where he could push some of it. For some he had to wiggle his way back out, pulling larger chunks along with him. He was soon back to continue the excavation.

  After working at it for a time, Richard was finally able to move his legs.

  “All right,” the man said, “I think we have you clear. We’ll go easy. Let us know if you are still stuck, but we need to get you out. There’s no telling if the rest of what’s above you might shift and come down all of a sudden.”

  “What’s your name?” Richard asked.

  The man seemed surprised by the question. “I’m just a nobody, Lord Rahl.”

  Richard smiled. “You are not a nobody. Right now, you are a very important somebody to me.”

  “I am Toby, Lord Rahl,” he said in a gentle voice.

  “Thank you for coming for me, Toby.”

  Toby patted Richard’s shoulder as he backed out. “I’d do anything for the man what rid us of that cursed witch. Now you lie still, Lord Rahl, and let us do the work.”

  The man squirmed the rest of the way back out of the shaft they had made. Once again thick fingers gripped Richard’s shirt. He felt himself beginning to move, and then they stopped pulling.

  “Is everything free now, Lord Rahl?” Toby asked. “Nothing hurting when we pull?”

  “I seem to be free. You can go ahead and give it another try. I’ll let you know if I’m having a problem.”

  Once he was out a little farther, to the more open part of the little cave, other hands were able to reach in under his arms to help pull. Because they were on their stomachs, it was an awkward angle to pull from. They would pause and then someone would count down and say, “Pull.”

  They kept repeating the coordinated tugging. Inch by inch Richard was gradually worked out of his tomb and back through a jagged tunnel of what he judged to be a jumble of unstable debris. At one point, his boot dislodged a rock and the narrow tunnel back where he had been under the slab collapsed with a roar that pushed out a cloud of dust.

  That made them pull all the harder and faster. The farther they drew him out, the more hands they could get on him to help. Richard finally emerged to see dirty, grimy faces in torchlight all around him.

  Berdine rushed in to give him a quick hug. Legs in red leather were all around him. He saw that it was now night. Some people had torches, while others had lanterns. The sea of faces in the flickering torchlight was an eerie, but welcome sight.

  An older woman pushed the Mord-Sith back out of the way and worked herself in through the tight crowd while holding out a lantern in one hand. With bony but strong fingers, she turned his head one way to have a look, then the other.

  “He needs help,” she announced back over her shoulder. “Lift him onto that litter and get him across the way and into the healing house so we can tend to him.”

  People rushed to do as the old woman said, lifting him by his arms and legs just enough to slide a litter under him. Four big men lifted the litter.

  Trying to be as gentle as they could, they carried him down off the sloping rubble pile and into the narrow streets. Richard bounced up and down in the litter as they trotted along, all the while the old woman urging them to hurry. Looking up, Richard could see by the torchlight that they went around corners and down narrow alleyways until they crossed the pass road that divided the town, over to the side where Richard and his group of nine hadn’t been.

  They finally went through a doorway into one of the stone buildings and set him down on a raised platform.

  The red leather reappeared around him; someone laid a hand on him as if to reassure themselves that he was alive. As they did, Richard’s mind went back into darkness.

  27

  When Richard woke, there was daylight streaming in through a small window. He was about to sit up when he realized that he didn’t have any clothes on. When he looked down, he saw that there was at least a towel covering his groin.

  He sniffed the air, seeming to recognize an aroma, trying to place it. Finally, he remembered. It was the smell of an aum plant, something from back in his home of Hartland. It seemed like forever since he had smelled it. It was a difficult plant to find, but Zedd had taught him where to look for it. It usually grew in the deep shade of the forest under a nannyberry tree, which was easier to find first because of its thick crop of dark blue berries.

  He reached up and pulled something wet off his head and held it out to look at it. It was a big leaf from an aum plant that had been crushed to make it pliable and conform to the contours of his head. That was what he had smelled. Aum both eased pain and, importantly, helped wounds to heal quickly.

  Vika shot to her feet when she saw that he was awake.

  “He’s awake,” she called out to the old woman.

  The old woman turned away from what she was doing at a table against the wall and smiled down at him. “There you are. You are looking much better.”

  The room with stone walls wasn’t large, but it was filled with tables, a long stone bench against one wall, and standing cabinets all across another wall.

  The old woman picked up a stone bowl from one of the tables. She used the pestle in the bowl to crush and stir the contents, then tapped it on the side, removed it, and set it aside. She came close and lifted his head as she put the bowl to his mouth.

  “Drink this. It will help you to clear your head.”

  Richard glanced at Vika. She gave him a reassuring nod, so he drank it. It had some pungent herbs in it, but it mostly tasted of honey diluted in tea.

  When he was finished, she patted his shoulder. “I’ll go get the others.”

  Shortly after the woman left, the rest of the Mord-Sith rushed into the room.

  “Lord Rahl!” Berdine squealed. “You look so much better!”

  Richard squinted up at the faces leaning in, looking at him. “Where are my clothes?”

&
nbsp; “Your clothes?” Cassia asked.

  “Yes, my clothes.”

  Nyda gestured. “They’re over there. They were positively filthy with all that stone dust and dirt, so we had to wash them.”

  Richard frowned up at the faces leaning in over him. “Well, who took them off me?”

  The faces all smiled.

  Richard rolled his eyes.

  “You were really dirty, too, from all that dirt and grime,” Berdine said. She grinned. “So we had to wash you, too.”

  Richard could feel his face turning red.

  The old woman rushed back in with half a dozen more old women, all of them in similar long, dark dresses with ample skirts. Richard was glad to have them interrupt the Mord-Sith.

  The original woman who had given him the drink held her hand out to the others. “Lord Rahl, we are Bindamoon healers. We have all been seeing to your care. I’m Rita.”

  “So you have been healing me?”

  “We all worked on you,” Rita confirmed. “You were seriously hurt.”

  She lifted the stack of aum leaves off his forehead, to the side, to have a look. She turned briefly to allow the others to have a look at the wound on his head. They all seemed pleased. Rita laid the moist aum back down, patting it gently into place so it would be in contact with the wound.

  He realized, then, that there were poultices in several places on his legs and a big patch of aum on the left side of his ribs. It was a pale yellow, similar to the poultice Zedd used to make, but it had a different smell.

  “You’re lucky to have been injured here, in Bindamoon,” Rita said. “We grow some of the rarest herbs here, herbs very helpful for healing. Because of the herbs we have, people come to Bindamoon to be healed. Some we can help, some we cannot.”

  “Aum is hard to find back where I come from,” he said. “You mean you actually grow it?”

  Her brow lifted in surprise. “You know of aum?”

  Richard nodded. “My grandfather taught me about it, and how to find it.”

  “Well, no trouble finding it here,” she said with a smile. “It’s a valuable medicinal plant, so we grow rows of it.” She turned a little and pointed. “We use fresh when we can, and we tie the plants up by their stems and hang them up in drying sheds, over there, until they are cured for when it is out of season. We trade most of it to help support our town and use some of it for people who come here to be healed. You are in one of our healing houses where we tend to people.”