The Third Kingdom Page 6

  As desperate as he was to help her, he realized that wasn’t the only trouble on his hands.

  He knew without a doubt that he should have at least felt something, but he didn’t. He remembered all too well that it had been much the same back at the wagon when he had reached down inside himself to call on his gift to help him protect Kahlan from those men. Nothing had happened then, either. If there was ever a case where his gift should have worked, it would be to protect her and to heal her.

  It wasn’t that he was simply too injured himself or too weak to heal her. He knew now that something more was going on. Whatever the problem, he didn’t know how to compensate for it.

  His level of fear and alarm rose as he wondered if his gift was gone.

  In place of the healing power of his gift that he should have felt, he realized that he could hear the slightest of sounds. As he concentrated on listening, trying to hear what it was, his blood ran cold as he realized that it sounded like distant screams.

  He didn’t know if those screams were coming from something he felt in Kahlan … or in himself. He wondered if he might be imagining it. He couldn’t help feeling haunted by the things Sammie had told him she had experienced.

  He fought back a rising sense of panic. He had told Sammie to calm down, that panic wouldn’t help. He knew that he had to take his own advice. He had to think if he was to act effectively.

  For whatever reason, what he was doing to try to heal Kahlan was not working. He opened his eyes, rose up, and took a long stride back to the girl.

  “Did you sense it in her, too?” Sammie asked.

  Richard shook his head. “What else did you sense in her?”

  Sammie looked confused by the question and intimidated by him towering over her. “Nothing. I was afraid. I drew back out of her.”

  Richard turned to look down at Kahlan, pinching his lower lip as he thought it through.

  Whatever was wrong with Kahlan, it had to have happened in the Hedge Maid’s lair. Whatever was wrong with him had started there as well. He and Kahlan had both been unconscious when Zedd, Nicci, and Cara found them.

  Richard remembered killing the Hedge Maid. He had been warned that his sword, and his gift, would not work against her. The Omen machine, though, had given him a prophecy: Your only chance is to let the truth escape.

  With that clue, he had realized that the way to stop that vile creature was to cut the leather strips sewing her mouth closed. Doing so had caused her to release an inner scream held back for most of her life by those leather strips. It had brought about the release of the corruption and death that had been contained and festering within her.

  First, though, knowing what he had been about to do, Richard had wadded up small pieces of cloth and stuffed them in Kahlan’s and his own ears to keep both of them from hearing that malevolent cry born in the world of the dead—to prevent them from hearing the call of death itself.

  At least, he thought it had kept them from hearing it.

  He turned back to Sammie. “I need you to use your gift on me, the way you did when you tried to heal Kahlan. I need to know if you can sense that same thing in me that you sensed in her.”

  Sammie shook her head as she shrank back.

  “Listen to me!” he yelled, freezing her in her tracks. “Lives are at stake. I’m not asking you to go beyond that green veil and cross over into what you sensed as death, but I need to know if the same thing you sensed in Kahlan is within me as well.”

  When she again started backing away he grabbed her slender wrist. “Listen to me, Sammie. You were able to back out of Kahlan, weren’t you?”

  Her eyes turned fearfully toward Kahlan. “Yes.”

  “So then it can’t pull you in. Whatever you sensed in her doesn’t have the power to do that. You are in control. Even though you went down deep into her you pulled yourself back out, didn’t you?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Didn’t you?” he repeated.

  He knew that he was frightening her, but it couldn’t be helped.

  “I suppose so,” she finally said.

  “Then you are the one in control, not what you saw in her. That evil may try to pull you toward it, but you have free will and are able to resist that dark call. You make the choice not to be pulled in by evil.”

  Sammie let her arm drop when he released her wrist. “I guess you’re right.”

  “I know I am,” Richard said. “I know because you came back of your own free will. But I also know because others were healing Kahlan and me when we were attacked. They both have vast experience and know a great deal more about healing than either you or I will likely ever know. They would have sensed what was in her and they wouldn’t have been trying to heal her if it was a lethal trap.”

  “But how can you be sure that they were healing her?”

  “They healed the wound on her stomach.”

  Sammie thought it over for a moment. “You’re right,” she finally admitted. “I felt that healing. I could tell that it was fresh, that not long before me someone else had been there healing her.”

  “And they came back. You were able to come back, too. That means you are in control. You aren’t helpless to that call of death.”

  She looked considerably more calm, even if she didn’t look at ease. “That makes sense.”

  Richard took a step closer to her. “I need you to check me. I need to know if that same sickness is in me.”

  She appraised his eyes for a moment with a look that was well beyond her years.

  “You suspect that you have the same thing in you that she has in her, and you think that may be what’s keeping your gift from working,” she said.

  It wasn’t a question.

  Richard arched an eyebrow, then sat on the floor and crossed his legs. “Come on. Do it now. I need to know.”

  Sammie let out a frustrated sigh, then gave in and sat before him. She followed Richard’s gaze to see a cat that had just sauntered into the room, peeking in the dark places behind the pillows against the far wall the way cats liked to do.

  “I think that the cat sensed what I saw in the Mother Confessor,” Sammie said.

  “The cat?”

  She nodded as she crossed her legs, the way he had done. “My mother says that cats are sensitive to spirits, to things from the world of the dead.”

  Richard looked at the girl for a moment without saying anything, then held his hands out. “Take my hands. Try to heal a few of my wounds. Do what you did with Kahlan.”

  Sammie gave in with a sigh and finally took his hands. Richard, having trouble holding his left arm up, rested his forearms across his knees. His bite wound had started bleeding again.

  Her hands looked tiny holding his. It occurred to him that right then, despite her young age and her inexperience, she wielded more power than he did. Not a comforting thought.

  The girl closed her eyes and slowed her breathing. Richard did the same, hoping to help her do her job. Ester stood off to the side wringing her hands as she watched.

  Richard tried not to think about what Sammie was doing, about what she might find. Instead, he thought about Zedd, Nicci, Cara, and Cara’s husband, Ben, the general who had led the troops to come find Richard and Kahlan. Richard needed to know what had happened to them. They would never have willingly left him and Kahlan to their fate.

  He remembered the bones and remnants of uniforms. He remembered what the two men had said, that those with Richard and Kahlan had been attacked by people called the Shun-tuk. He remembered seeing masses of dead attackers. He remembered the vulgar visage of one of those dead whose bloodstained teeth had all been filed to points to better rip into flesh.

  With the Hedge Maid dead, he had thought that the battle was over. It appeared that it had only just begun. Something more was going on. Something more than he understood.

  He needed to find answers and he knew that time was working against everyone. If those people he cared so much about were in the hands of the Sh
un-tuk, then every day that went by made their survival less likely. The longer Kahlan went without gifted help, the worse he feared she was going to get. He was not much better off himself.

  These people, too, the people of Stroyza, were in trouble, probably a great deal more trouble than they realized. They were used to the harsh conditions and dangers of the Dark Lands, but these savages who ate human flesh appeared to be something new.

  Sammie gasped suddenly and yanked her hands back, releasing his as if they had burst into flames.

  Richard leaned in. “What did you see?”

  Sammie’s eyes were wide with terror and brimming with tears. Her breathing was ragged and quick.

  “I felt your pain,” she whispered. “Dear spirits, how can you stand it?”

  “I don’t have a choice. The lives of those I love and the people I am sworn to protect are at stake. That’s what matters to me the most at the moment. Now, what else did you feel?”

  Sammie swiped tears from under her eyes. “I felt the same thing, Lord Rahl. You have the same thing in you as the Mother Confessor. Death, behind the veil of green. You both have death in you.”

  Richard couldn’t say that he was surprised. He hadn’t really expected anything different. Both he and Kahlan had been exposed to the Hedge Maid’s screams, screams that had been unleashed from the underworld itself.

  He looked up at Ester’s ashen face. “Bring Henrik to me.”

  “You want the boy?” she looked confused. “Now? Lord Rahl, your wounds must be tended to. Your arm is bleeding again and it must—”

  “Now,” Richard said.

  CHAPTER

  11

  Richard turned from Kahlan’s unconscious form when he heard the sound of feet shuffling out in the passageway. Ester lifted the sheepskin out of the way for Henrik to duck in under it. When the boy saw Richard, he smiled, but the smile clearly betrayed his worry.

  Richard returned the smile, trying to convey a sense of his own worry. “Thanks for coming, Henrik. Come, sit by me.”

  Henrik cautiously sat on the floor, close to Richard and Sammie. His eyes, reflecting points of candlelight, lingered on Kahlan. He would be dead if not for her coming into Jit’s lair and freeing him.

  “Is the Mother Confessor going to be all right, Lord Rahl?”

  Richard shook his head. “I don’t know yet. We don’t know enough about exactly what’s wrong with her. I’m hoping that you can fill in some of the blanks and tell me something that will help us to know how to heal her.”

  “I don’t know much about sickness and such, but I don’t think you can heal her.”

  Richard was taken by surprise. “Why do you say that?”

  “Because of what I overheard Zedd and Nicci talking about. They said that they could only hope to help both of you temporarily, until they could get you back to the People’s Palace.”

  Puzzled, Sammie scooted a little closer. “The People’s Palace? Really? A palace? Did you hear why?”

  Henrik nodded.

  Seeing that they would be busy in conversation, Ester took the opportunity to pull the bucket of water and the bandages closer so that she could go back to her work on Kahlan’s wounds.

  Richard lifted a hand, stopping Henrik from answering Sammie’s question. “I need you to start at the beginning. Tell me everything that happened. It’s important that we know all the details. Don’t leave anything out. Sometimes the little details have meaning that you may not realize are important, but I would.”

  Richard couldn’t help thinking of all the times Zedd had told him the same thing. Zedd always wanted every little detail. Richard felt a little uncomfortable finding himself repeating those same things that he used to find so frustrating when Zedd had insisted on them.

  Henrik pushed his disorderly fall of hair back from his eyes. “Well, the Mother Confessor came in and cut me out of the walls made of thorny vines that the Hedge Maid had used to imprison me, but then Jit showed up and captured her right as I was able to escape—but you already know that much of it because I ran into you as I was running out of Jit’s lair.

  “You told me that your friends were on their way from the People’s Palace to help you, and you asked me to go and tell them where you and the Mother Confessor were. So I kept running and not too long after that I found the whole column of cavalry accompanying Zedd, Nicci, and Cara. They were pretty impatient to find you both. I told them where you were, and that Jit had the Mother Confessor. I told them that you were going to go in to save her.

  “I went with them so I could show them the way. When we finally got to the Hedge Maid’s place we found you and the Mother Confessor inside. Jit was dead. She looked like her whole body had been torn apart from the inside. There was blood everywhere. It was a frightful sight.

  “You and the Mother Confessor were both unconscious and bleeding badly. After Cara and the soldiers cut you out of the thorny vines where the Hedge Maid had you both trapped, Zedd burned that awful place to the ground. It was strange seeing such a fire burning in the middle of a watery swamp. It was a fierce fire. It lit the bottoms of the clouds. There’s not a scrap of Jit’s place left.”

  “I’m glad to hear that much of it,” Richard said half to himself. “Then what?”

  Henrik’s mouth twisted a little as he frowned in recollection. “The soldiers laid you both in the back of a wagon. Cara was so angry that you and the Mother Confessor were hurt that she looked ready to spit fire herself.”

  Richard couldn’t help smiling. “I can only imagine.” His smile faded when he thought about the danger Cara and the rest of them were in. He needed to find them, and soon.

  “Go on.”

  “With the cavalry leading, we started back, headed for the People’s Palace,” Henrik said. “Zedd and Nicci were tending to the both of you. At first, Zedd was really upset about how badly you were both hurt.

  “As they were walking along beside the wagon, Zedd found a little wad of rolled-up cloth in your ear. Nicci found the same thing in Kahlan’s ears. She said ‘No wonder they’re alive.’

  “Zedd didn’t understand. Nicci told him that it was said that the scream of a Hedge Maid, if she were ever to open her mouth all the way and let it out, was the sound of the Keeper of the underworld himself. Nicci said that the sound of such a scream would pull the Hedge Maid and anyone who hears it into the underworld. She said that the unleashed scream of a Hedge Maid is death, even to herself, so at a young age, before they can fully develop a voice capable of calling death into the world of life, a Hedge Maid’s mother sews her lips shut with leather strips imbued with occult powers that hold death back.

  “Nicci said that she suspected that you both were alive because you stuffed those wads of cloth in your ears and that shielded you from the full power of that scream.

  “Zedd wanted to know how she knew so much about such things. Nicci said that she knew because she had once been a Sister of the Dark serving the Keeper of the underworld. She said that Hedge Maids were vile creatures who use a kind of occult conjuring that is directly linked to the world of the dead.

  “She said that such powers were a perversion of the Grace and as such not able to be touched by regular gifted ability. She said that was what made a Hedge Maid so dangerous, that Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor would have no power against her.

  “Nicci explained to them, then, how you both were touched not just by the Hedge Maid’s occult conjuring and the things she was doing to you, but more importantly you were both touched by her scream. She said that through that scream you both were touched by death itself and therefore infected with it.”

  Sammie gave Richard a look, as if to say “I told you so.”

  Richard rolled his hand for Henrik to go on.

  “Well, Zedd didn’t exactly believe everything Nicci was telling him about the power of such a scream born in the underworld and death infecting you both.”

  “Sound familiar?” Sammie asked under her breath.

  Rich
ard gave her a sideways look but didn’t say anything.

  Henrik was involved in his story and didn’t hear her. “So Nicci put two fingers on Kahlan’s head. She told Zedd, ‘Here, see for yourself.’ He leaned in and put two fingers on Kahlan’s head next to Nicci’s fingers. She asked if he felt it.

  “Zedd said that he felt some kind of frightening, deathly darkness. Nicci told him that what he was feeling was the touch of death from the Hedge Maid that you both carried in you.”

  “Just like I said,” Sammie noted.

  Richard nodded. “You were right.”

  She smiled at the triumph as Henrik continued his story.

  “Zedd was really afraid because of what he’d felt in Kahlan. Cara got scared, too. She asked if you both were going to die because you had death hiding in you. Nicci said not if she had anything to do with it.

  “Nicci said that you both were only alive because the wads of cloth you had stuffed in your ears blunted the full sounds of death’s call, but it still had infected you both.”

  “Did they say how to heal them?” Sammie asked, suddenly excited about the possibility of having an answer to the riddle.

  “Nicci said that she thought she could do it, but that it had to be done in something called a containment field.”

  Richard felt as if the floor fell out from under him. It was no longer a simple matter of being healed by a gifted person. This was no simple injury. It was going to take more than a simple healing if the real threat within them was to be addressed.

  “A containment field?” Sammie’s nose wrinkled up. “What’s a containment field?”

  Henrik shrugged with the discomfort of not having the answer for her.

  “It’s a place that keeps any foreign spells out while you work on or open up dangerous forms of magic,” Richard told her. “More importantly, though, it also keeps contained those things you unleash—either intentionally or accidentally. Things you wouldn’t want escaping.”

  Sammie looked stunned by the description. “Where can we get one of these containment fields? How do you make one?”