Into Darkness Page 18

  Shota removed her finger. When she did, Kahlan sucked in a breath and a cry of agony. At last, the painful contraction eased.

  “All right, you win,” Kahlan said, swallowing between pants as she caught her breath. “I won’t cause any more trouble. I will go willingly.”

  Shota stared long and hard into Kahlan’s eyes as if to satisfy herself that Kahlan meant it before slowly nodding.

  “Smart girl. Now, no more nonsense. We will not be stopping.” The witch woman lifted an arm to point. “It grows dark, but the tree line is right there. Out of the woods and in the open, with the moonlight reflecting off the snowcaps, there will be plenty of light to allow us to continue.

  “We will walk the rest of the night to cross that snowcap, and then in the morning we will reach the swamp that guards my home. Once through that foul place, we will head down into my beautiful home of Agaden Reach. It will be warm, and you will be able to rest until you deliver. But for now, we push on.”

  Kahlan was still experiencing stitches of pain, although they were easing. She felt helpless. She feared that what Shota did might harm the babies. She didn’t want her to do anything like it again.

  She nodded her agreement.

  Shota looked around at all the witches seeming to hang on her every word, Shale among them. Shota gestured with a flick of her hand. “Let’s get moving. Now.”

  Kahlan had been well aware that Shota had shown no fear of being within range of her Confessor’s power. More worrisome, she could feel a subtle difference in the restraint that she always had to exert on that power within herself, lest it be unleashed accidentally. The coiled fury of the power felt … muted. It was as if that restraint had clamped down tight when Shota had finally established the coven with all thirteen witches.

  When Shota glared at her, waiting, Kahlan grabbed a root for a handhold and started climbing, following after the rest of them, with Nea right behind.

  Something fundamental in the back of Kahlan’s mind was bothering her. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she knew that the pieces didn’t fit. Something didn’t ring true, didn’t add up, didn’t make sense, but she couldn’t quite reach it. Despite her best efforts to pull that question out of the dark reaches of her mind to examine possible answers, it remained just out of her grasp.

  She knew, though, that if she thought on it long enough, it would come to her.

  34

  Not long after dawn, after a long and difficult night of crossing the frigid, windswept lower slopes of the spires that formed the formidable wreath of thorns protecting Agaden Reach, Kahlan and the witches guarding her finally started a difficult descent. Initially, they trudged through deep snow to make their way down the slopes. They had to avoid what looked like easier travel over open rock because it was mostly covered with black ice. The snow at least kept them from slipping and falling out on the sloping granite ledges where they could easily crack their skulls if they fell wrong.

  To avoid the danger of the slippery ice-covered rock, they instead had to plow down through the snow that collected between massive fingers of rock jutting up all around. It was not only a more difficult route, but a more dangerous one because of how steep it was in those white rivers of snow. There were times when Kahlan thought she might not survive the steep drops they sometimes had to slide down. A few of the witch women fell during those descents and tumbled a long way before recovering their footing.

  Like the rest of them, Kahlan had to aim for the upright columns of rock and then slam her feet against the rock to break the slide and keep from accelerating and being carried over a cliff. Some of the others, like the sour-faced bull of a witch, were quite awkward at it, but they all made it. After using the tall stacks of open rock at the end of each of those runs down, they then had to traverse the slope to make it over to the next one that didn’t end in a sheer drop where they would fall to their death.

  Anyone attempting to get into Agaden Reach who didn’t know the proper route through the maze of towering rock outcroppings would have a difficult if not impossible task to find the one true way down the dangerous slopes. Taking a wrong turn on the way down, one that might look good at first, if it didn’t turn out to be a dead end could instead turn out to be a place where it would be impossible to stop, with nothing below for thousands of feet. It was just another of the many hazards protecting Agaden Reach.

  Kahlan’s teeth chattered the whole time they were out on the moon-lit, open ledges below the snowpack. But the worst of the cold had been crossing the snow. She had been so cold it made her hurt all over and gave her a crushing headache.

  The muscles of her legs burned from the effort of the controlled falls down through the fingers of snow and then, once below them, hiking down off the steeply sloping shelves of open granite, then over and through debris fields of boulders and the jumble of fallen rock. Her ankles felt like they were about to give out, but she knew she had to keep going if she was to have any hope for the twins to survive.

  She didn’t know how she would save their lives once they got down into Agaden Reach, she only knew she would have to find a way. She knew she couldn’t count on Richard showing up. It was going to have to be up to her.

  When the sun was finally up, they at last entered the dark woods, where they were at least sheltered from the cold wind. As they moved down through the steep, forested mountainside, it gradually began to grow warmer. The farther they went, the warmer it got, until Kahlan’s teeth finally stopped chattering and she didn’t have to hunch her shoulders.

  After a few more hours of making their way lower through tangled growths of tightly packed thickets of saplings and snarled vines, they at last reached the flat, swampy area that guarded the entrance to Agaden Reach.

  Even though the sun had come up, it was dark and gloomy among the massive trees and vegetation, which grew thicker the farther in they went. Kahlan had always thought of this place as a moat, like those around some fortress castles, except this one protected Shota’s home and was far more dangerous than any simple moat.

  Kahlan remembered quite clearly going through these strange, hot, humid woods. After the frigid hike the night before, the oppressive heat was at first welcome. Before long, it became suffocating.

  She remembered, too, how dangerous these woods were. The swamp had unseen things that would grab anyone unwary enough to wander into the water, and in some cases, if they simply got too close to it, they could be snatched right off the trail. It was not at all rare to see human bones in the bogs or sticking up from the slimy, green, swampy places that had trapped them.

  Kahlan knew that a wizard had once come to take Shota’s home. He was not killed by anything in the swamp. He had faced something far more dangerous: the witch who lived there and wanted her home back. She had used his hide to cover her throne. The same throne now buried under a mountain of rubble.

  Kahlan prayed to the good spirits that Richard wasn’t also buried under all of that same rubble.

  As she plodded ahead, Kahlan was well beyond her second wind. She was spent and could only shuffle along, putting one weary foot in front of the other, her mind numb. But in these woods, she knew that she had to pay attention to every step, or it might be her last, so she focused again and tried to watch where she put her feet.

  The hot, humid swamp smelled foul. They passed through a number of areas, though, where the stench was especially bad. She held her hand over her mouth and nose, trying not to breathe in the gagging smell of death and rotting flesh. She hurried until they were past the worst of it.

  Birds screamed raucous calls that echoed through the wet woods. The ravens that had followed them for so long sat in a row on a long, dead branch, watching Kahlan approach. They cocked their heads and looked down at her with one black eye as she passed beneath them. Sometimes they flapped their wings and cawed so loudly it made her ears hurt. Then, they flew on to another branch where they could continue to watch her progress.

  Here and there boggy patches
of water spanned back in under the thick, overhanging growth. Vapor hung just above the murky black water. In places, it drifted out and across the path. It swirled around her legs as she walked through the thick, heavy mist. It came up only about as high as her knees and left the bottoms of her trousers damp. It also carried with it the smells of dead things.

  In other spots, the tangle of thick vines coiled like snakes on the trees, killing them. In the boggy woods to the sides the roots of large trees were so thick, gnarled, and broad that in places they spread out over the path. She knew that if her ankle got caught in one of those gnarled roots, she might break it before she could catch herself, so it took time and extreme caution to cross those extensive webs of roots.

  Off across the water, in the deep shadows, she could see glowing eyes watching them. Others followed from off in the trees and brush. A few dark shapes now and then leaped from tree to tree, following them from the shadows for a time.

  In some of the wetter areas, large trees stood on skirts of tall roots, as if trying to stay above the dark water. Smaller creatures hid back in those standing roots. The gray trunks of those trees were smooth and bare of bark and their branches were bare of leaves. Instead, they were draped with long trailers of dead, brown moss hanging still in the stagnant, humid air. It made the trees look like silver specters haunting the trail, watching who dared pass.

  The spongy path in many places was mere inches above the expanses of turbid water to either side. With each step, water oozed up out of the soft, mossy ground and over her boots. Sometimes the water to the sides rippled as something unseen under the surface followed them along for a time, then left a spiraling swirl as it submerged.

  Off in the thick, dark, dense vegetation in the distance, unseen things whooped and howled. Every once in a while, Kahlan spotted a shadowed shape skitter through the lower branches or bound along the ground back in the brush. In the heavy air, other things off out of sight clicked and whistled warnings to others of their kind. Creatures she couldn’t see and couldn’t imagine noted the group’s passing with apparent displeasure by growling low, guttural warnings.

  In some places, the mist rising from the stinking, bubbling, thick black water carried with it the smell of sulfur. It was a smell strongly associated with the underworld, so Kahlan kept a wary watch whenever she smelled it, worried that something might appear from the world of the dead.

  Sometimes the mist carried the gagging stench of rotting flesh. There was never any area where it smelled even remotely good. Kahlan was reluctant to draw a breath as her gaze continually swept the area to each side, watching for danger or the source of the stench. In places she saw the bloated, putrefied, half-submerged bodies of animals too rotted to identify. She didn’t know if they had drowned in the foul water, or possibly succumbed to the toxic smells.

  In a few places she saw rotting corpses that looked like they might be human floating only partly above the surface of scummy water.

  Those ahead of her carefully picked their way over the tangled masses of roots of the gnarled trees. She remembered all too well that there were particularly dangerous roots in the swamp that no one would dare to walk across. The roots of those trees, the ones with squat, fat trunks, were tangled and looked very much like nests of balled snakes. Those roots had to be given a wide berth. She saw those every once in a while, but the path skirted them, and the witch women always walked on the farthest side of the path so as to stay as far away as possible.

  And then, near just one of those squat trees with the tangled roots that had to be avoided, Kahlan suddenly missed a step.

  She stopped; her eyes went wide.

  The thing she had been trying pull from the dark corner of her mind suddenly came rushing forward into her consciousness.

  She realized what it was that didn’t make sense.

  35

  One single question stood out in Kahlan’s mind above all others.

  Why would Shota want Kahlan to give birth just so she could kill the babies?

  And why go to all the trouble to take her all the way to Agaden Reach to give birth? Not only that, but if she simply wanted to kill the babies, why not have her miscarry—which she had now twice proven she was entirely capable of doing—and then use a healer, like Shale, to help her recover if she really wanted Kahlan to live? If her intention was in fact to get rid of the babies and not kill Kahlan, that would be the easiest way. It would be over and done with.

  So why would Shota insist that the babies must be born first, if she simply wanted them dead so that what she saw as the threat of their existence would be ended?

  On the surface it made no sense.

  But beneath the surface, it was starting to make sinister sense.

  In the beginning, Shota had told Richard and Kahlan that she harbored no ill will toward them. She had even said that she appreciated the things they had done for their people, as well as what they had done that had saved her from the Keeper of the underworld. She had even said that she rather liked them, and that she didn’t mean them any harm.

  She had tried to paint herself as reasonable—kind, even.

  She had said that after the birth they would be free to go.

  And yet, she proudly admitted that she had spelled Richard’s legs so that he couldn’t get away in time and the palace would collapse on top of him. That certainly didn’t sound like she didn’t intend them harm. In fact, she had used her power in a surprise attack to try to kill him just before that. Richard hadn’t struck first; she had. Despite her benevolent claims, it was clear that her intent had been to kill him, not let him go.

  After all of that, why would she then go back to her original story that she meant Kahlan no harm and that she would let her go once she gave birth? She had said that she intended Richard no harm, either, yet she had clearly acted to kill him.

  Why did Shota seem so intent on keeping Kahlan alive and having her give birth before she killed the children? What purpose would it serve to have the children born before she killed them?

  It now seemed pretty clear from everything that had happened that Shota didn’t really intend to let Kahlan go once she gave birth. She intended to kill her.

  So, if she actually intended to kill her in the end, but wasn’t admitting as much, which Kahlan now believed was the case, then the previous evening, on the mountain before they crossed the snowcaps, why hadn’t she simply let Kahlan miscarry and bleed to death? It would have been a simple solution to the greater good she kept talking about.

  For that matter, why hadn’t she let Kahlan die way back when she started to miscarry after they finally got out of the strange wood? Killing the two unborn babies was her goal, after all, for that greater good as she saw it, so what difference would it have made had the babies died in a miscarriage and Kahlan died as well?

  Shota’s true intentions flashed like ice through Kahlan’s veins.

  Kahlan stood frozen with the sudden realization of what Shota actually wanted.

  36

  Kahlan was well aware that time was not on her side. If she was going to try something, it had to be now, when they least expected it. Later, down in Agaden Reach, with her time running out and the birth imminent, they would be expecting her to try to resist or flee.

  The problem was, she knew that her Confessor power wouldn’t work on Shota because the witch woman was now in command of the power of coven. That power protected her—protected all of them—as long as that power of coven was in effect.

  The coven. Of course. With sudden realization, she grasped the only way that gave her any kind of chance against all of these women.

  “Keep moving,” Nea growled from behind, bringing Kahlan out of her headlong rush of thoughts.

  She knew she needed some kind of excuse in order to create surprise. What had Richard always told her? If you had to act, if acting was your only hope, then act swiftly with maximum violence.

  Thinking quickly, Kahlan saw her only opportunity. She went to a knee an
d bent forward so that Nea couldn’t see what she was doing.

  “I said to keep moving!” the witch woman screamed at her from behind.

  Kahlan looked back over her shoulder. “My bootlace came untied. I have to retie it.”

  Nea folded her arms. “Well, hurry it up, then.”

  Sorrel, one of the more disagreeable of the whole disagreeable lot of witches, stormed back, shoving her way past the bull of a witch woman who had been just ahead of Kahlan. She angrily waved her arms. Her gums were dark, as were the rings around her eyes, adding to her already wicked looks.

  “What’s going on?” Sorrel demanded.

  As the angry Sorrel had been charging back through the group of witch women, Kahlan knew she was quickly running out of time. She struggled with all her might, using her fingertips to try to pry the heavy rock out of the mud where it was half buried right beside her boot. She hunched over in such a way that the others couldn’t see what she was doing and would think she was tying the lace on her boot.

  She held her breath with the effort of pulling on the rock. The mud sucked it down tight and made it resist coming up. She wiggled the rock then pried it with all her strength, her breath held and muscles tight against the effort, knowing it was her only chance, but the portion of the rock under the muddy ground was larger than Kahlan had thought at first, making it far more difficult than she had expected. She knew that she dared not abandon the effort. It could very well be the last chance she would ever get.

  Sorrel rushed up in a rage, screaming curses and waving her arms.

  “Answer me!” Sorrel yelled, her face going red with fury, matching the red tips of her spiky hair.

  The rock popped free of the mud.

  Instead of answering the woman, Kahlan sprang up and whirled around in one fluid motion, bringing the rock with her. As she spun, she whipped the heavy rock around at the end of her extended arm.