Into Darkness Read online

  “Bindamoon? This is Bindamoon?” Shale asked with a frown of surprise as she took a step forward. “I know of Bindamoon.”

  Iron Jack’s tense expression eased and he beamed again. “Then you know what a wonderful place it is.”

  Richard shot a suspicious look at the sorceress. “You’re from the Northern Waste. How do you know of it?”

  “Some of the people in the Northern Waste trade in Bindamoon for rare herbs. Healers consider this place sacred. They make pilgrimages here to collect the rare herbs they need.”

  Richard turned back to the blocky man. “You said that you were expecting us.”

  “That’s right,” the man said, as if no explanation were needed.

  Richard clearly wanted to hear that explanation. “How is it that you were expecting us?”

  “The queen told us that you were coming.”

  “The queen,” Richard repeated in a flat tone.

  Iron Jack twisted around to lift an arm toward an elegant, soaring structure built on a prominent rise of rock in the distance.

  “Yes, the queen. That would be her winter palace, up there.”

  “We need to see this queen,” Richard said. “Now.”

  Iron Jack, the mirth again vanishing from his gnarly features, lifted his eyebrows. “Oh, I’m afraid that isn’t possible.”

  13

  “And why isn’t it possible?” Richard asked.

  The man shrugged in reaction to the question. “It’s the middle of the night, in case you hadn’t noticed. No one would be wanting to wake the queen at this time of night, and I’m sure you wouldn’t, either. You will wait until morning.”

  Richard clearly looked displeased. “The morning? You expect us to wait until morning to see this queen of yours?”

  Iron Jack smiled without humor. “That’s right. You may see her in the morning—if, that is, she wishes to see you, and when she wishes to see you. She is, after all, not at the beck and call of travelers. Until then, I will take you to our guest quarters, where you may await word on a possible audience.”

  “That sounds more than reasonable,” Shale said as she tugged Richard’s sleeve to get him to let her speak for them.

  When he frowned back at her she gave him an odd smile as her eyes widened and she leaned toward him a little with meaning. Kahlan could see that the sorceress had her reasons for not wanting to push the issue and she wasn’t going to say those reasons out loud in front of the stout man. She was simply hoping to get Richard to go along with her.

  Richard finally turned back to Iron Jack. “Considering the late hour, I agree that it would be a rude imposition. Why don’t you take us to these guest quarters?”

  Shale looked relieved. Iron Jack appraised Richard with a sly smile. Kahlan thought for a moment that the two men might suddenly break into a battle right then and there among the fields of herbs and blue butterflies.

  Iron Jack finally broke eye contact and turned to lead them off past the fields of herbs toward the mass of buildings. When they reached a series of paths that branched off, he took one leading to the right. It soon started ascending the steep slope into the town, wending its way among the tightly packed buildings that, while square and uniform, were placed askew, apparently wherever would work best on the rising mountainside.

  Heavy wooden beams every few feet were set across the cobblestone path to make steps of sorts as well as help keep people from slipping in the wet as they climbed through the canyon of buildings.

  Walls made of flat, tannish-colored stone set in dark mortar rose straight up to each side. The path wouldn’t have been wide enough for a wagon. When they came to a small handcart sitting tight against the wall by a door painted dark green, they all had to turn sideways in order to squeeze past.

  They finally reached a long, low, blocky building in a row of low, blocky buildings set in front of another. Since each of the buildings had a number of doors, the long buildings were apparently divided into a series of separate rooms. Iron Jack opened the first weathered, wooden door they came to.

  “These are guest accommodations for visitors, merchants, traders, and those passing through Bindamoon and needing a place to stay for the night.” He pointed to the row of doors in the low stone buildings. “There is a different room for each of you. I don’t know what sort of food would be at hand at this hour, but I will have someone bring along something to eat to each of your rooms.”

  “Thank you, Iron Jack,” Shale said, stepping in front of the others before anyone else could say a word. “We could all use a bite to eat and some rest.”

  He bowed his head with another sly smile as his gaze passed among all those watching him. “Have a good night’s rest, then. I will come by in the morning to take you to the queen, if she is of a mind to greet visitors.”

  Once the man was gone, Richard ushered all of the Mord-Sith through the open door, rather than letting anyone go to one of the other rooms. He then urged Kahlan and Shale inside and, once inside, shut the door. The sorceress lit a lamp on a small table and another on a shelf in the stone wall. There was a bed, and other than a table with a bench on each side, not much else, not even a window.

  “I don’t want us splitting up and going to different rooms,” Richard said.

  “I have to agree with your sentiment,” Shale said. “All is not right here, and not what it seems.”

  Berdine arched an eyebrow sarcastically. “You don’t say?”

  The sorceress turned from Berdine to Richard. “Iron Jack is gifted—maybe a sorcerer or possibly even a wizard. I don’t know exactly what he is, but I do know he is gifted.”

  Richard shared a look with Kahlan.

  “He’s a wizard?” Kahlan asked. “You mean like Richard?”

  “No one is a wizard like Lord Rahl,” she said.

  “But is he powerful?” Kahlan asked.

  Shale shrugged unhappily. “I don’t know a great deal about wizards and such. All I can say with any certainty is that he is powerful enough to cause us a world of trouble.”

  Richard slipped the baldric off over his head. He held the point of the scabbard out to Vika and Cassia.

  “Take hold of the scabbard while I try to draw the sword.”

  Despite their looks of confusion, the two Mord-Sith gripped the scabbard and together spread their feet. Richard held on to the hilt and pulled the sword with all his might. The two women bent their knees and backs into it. As Richard pulled and they held on tight, their feet slid as he dragged them both across the wooden floor.

  Kahlan was alarmed that the sword would not come free. She could see that the scabbard wasn’t bent or dented. Richard finally conceded that it wasn’t going to work.

  Shale frowned with concern. “Here, let me see it.”

  When he handed her the sword with the baldric still attached, she held it in one hand and ran her other hand down the length of the elaborately engraved silver and gold scabbard.

  She finally handed it back. “I can’t tell the exact nature of it, but I can tell you that the blade has been locked in by a spell of some sort.”

  Richard tried jiggling the handle in an unsuccessful attempt to draw out the sword before looking up at her. “Can you break the spell?”

  Shale arched an eyebrow. “You’re a war wizard. Can’t you break the spell?”

  Richard’s only answer was to smile. Kahlan couldn’t understand the meaning behind the look. Before she had time to consider his expression, Shale shook her head in sympathy.

  “It would take more power than mine to overcome the magic holding the sword in the scabbard. It was likely a relatively easy trick for someone gifted to merely weld it in, as it were, so that it can’t be drawn. It would be a much simpler way to disable the magic of the sword itself than to actually defeat such immense power.”

  Richard simply nodded as he slipped the baldric back over his head anyway, apparently not willing to abandon the weapon even if he couldn’t draw it for now. Kahlan had a hard time believing t
hat he couldn’t pull it from its scabbard.

  “The Seeker is the weapon,” she reminded him. “The sword is just a tool.”

  Richard smiled at her. “You’re right.”

  “Iron Jack may be gifted in some way,” Vika said, “but Lord Rahl is a war wizard. Lord Rahl is more powerful and can handle that red-haired fool. He has killed legions of Glee with his power. He can certainly pull the head off that obnoxious Iron Jack if he has to.”

  Shale sighed. “I hope you’re right, and I don’t mean to discount Lord Rahl’s ability—I’ve certainly seen things that I can’t begin to understand—but I think there is more to Iron Jack than meets the eye.”

  Kahlan stepped closer. “Like what?”

  Shale shook her head, clearly distressed. “I don’t know but think about why we are here.”

  “You mean the boundary?” Kahlan asked.

  “Yes, and don’t forget about the strange wood, among other things. The boundary was put up by someone or some group of people using Lord Rahl’s gift. If they are that powerful, then …”

  Vika planted her fists on her hips. “Then you think Lord Rahl isn’t powerful enough to handle them?”

  Shale looked anguished to be taken the wrong way. “I’m not saying that, I’m only bringing up the fact that people powerful enough to steal his ability and use it to create the boundary are at the center of this, so it seems obvious they manipulated us in order to get us to this place. I only mean to say that we are dealing with something profoundly dangerous, and we should not assume anything—not about Iron Jack or anyone else we might meet here. Bold people often end up dead.”

  Vika’s glare eased. “Well, I would have to agree that Lord Rahl is often too bold for his own good. He would usually be better off if he let us handle things.”

  “Whatever is going on,” Richard said, seemingly irritated by the way they were talking about him, “it is profoundly dangerous, and we need not to have tests of magic with anyone until we know what we’re up against.”

  Shale nodded with relief. “That’s all I meant.”

  Before they had time to discuss what they were going to do next, there was a knock at the door. When Richard opened it, a shy woman holding a tray looked inside and blinked in surprise. She then leaned back to look to the other doors. Richard leaned out for a look himself. Kahlan could just see through the open doorway that there were other women also carrying trays at the other doors, confused that their knocks weren’t being answered. They all wore the same formal brown dresses with white aprons of servants.

  “You aren’t all in your rooms,” the woman said with obvious surprise and uncertainty as to what she should do about it.

  “They will all be going to their rooms in a bit,” Richard told her in a friendly tone to ease the worry on her face. “We’re all in here talking about our arrival at this amazing place of Bindamoon.”

  His words did the trick to put her at ease. The young woman finally smiled. “Bindamoon certainly is an amazing place.”

  “And how do you like the queen?” he asked, offhandedly.

  The smile evaporated. She bowed her head, fearing to look up into his eyes. “I am but a nobody, sir. I have never met the queen, so I would have no reason to have any thoughts on her, much less an opinion.”

  “I see,” Richard said as he took the tray with a bowl of soup.

  Relieved of her tray, she took a step back to motion the others to bring theirs. As they filed in, several of the Mord-Sith took the bowls of steaming soup, pots of hot tea, and cups and placed them all on the table. Once they had emptied the trays, they glared at the women. The women, fearful of meeting the gazes of the Mord-Sith, bowed their heads as they tucked their trays under an arm and filed out.

  The one who had come first bowed deeply several times. “Please enjoy your meal.”

  After she hurried away Richard shut the door. “I don’t want us splitting up and going to separate rooms. I want all nine of us to stay together.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Vika said.

  The rest of the Mord-Sith all nodded that they were of the same opinion.

  Shale, over at the table, turned back to the rest of them after staring down into the soup. She stirred a finger over one of the bowls.

  “I don’t advise eating any of this.”

  “Is there a problem with it?” Kahlan asked.

  “I believe that I can detect some kind of nasty magic floating around in it.”

  “You mean the food has been spelled?” Richard asked.

  “Yes, I believe so, but I don’t know what kind of spell it could be. It’s possible that it could merely be an innocent spell to help us sleep, but I think it best if we don’t eat it and find out too late that it is something more.”

  With the heel of his hand resting on the hilt of his sword locked into the scabbard by some sort of magic, Richard drummed his fingers on the wire-wound handle.

  He frowned in thought as he looked around at the others. “Why are we here?”

  “To see the queen?” Berdine asked.

  Richard shook his head. “No. We came here because the boundary left us no other way around the mountains. But the path, while leading us into this trap, also revealed a pass that can get us over the mountains. That’s what we need to do: get through this pass and cross over the mountains and into the Midlands.

  “Why would we need to see the queen? What we need to do is leave this place before the Golden Goddess sees us through the eyes of people here and sends more of the Glee to kill us. We’ve been lucky up until now in fighting them. I’d rather not press our luck and have to fight them again.”

  Shale passed a worried look between Richard and Kahlan. “What about Iron Jack? He is gifted. And you can’t use your sword because of some magic he has used on it.”

  “Hopefully he went to bed.” Richard showed her a grim expression. “But if he tries to harm us and if I have to, I will put my sword, scabbard and all, through his heart.”

  “At last,” Vika said, throwing up her hands, “you are finally making sense.”

  Her sisters of the Agiel all nodded their agreement.

  14

  Other than a skinny gray cat looking for a meal among the refuse in scattered piles and trash that had drifted into corners of buildings, the dark, narrow streets of the mountain-fortress town were deserted. Something about darkness gave the place a forbidding feel. Kahlan got the distinct feeling that Bindamoon was not a place where one would want to be outside at night.

  Moonlight reflected off cobblestones worn smooth and shiny by countless feet. The variety of laundry hung on ropes strung between opposing windows overhead cast ghostly moon shadows across the passageways. Without any wind, woodsmoke from chimneys curled down the tile roofs to settle into the canyons and alleyways between the towering walls, looking like fog as it slowly crept along the ground.

  Kahlan was relieved that there hadn’t been guards posted at the guest quarters to keep watch over them. At least, there were none she saw. She supposed that they assumed the spells in the soup had rendered them helpless, or unconscious. Or even dead.

  Shale had said that she didn’t sense anyone near. Richard, worried about how the gifted might be able to use magic to conceal their presence, and not exactly sure of the extent of Shale’s ability to determine such things, had gone out alone to scout the area anyway and make sure they weren’t being watched. Once he was satisfied that there was no one about, he and Vika took the lead as they left the buildings Iron Jack had taken them to. They left the soup and pots of tea untouched and cold on the table.

  Berdine shadowed Vika, with Kahlan and then the rest following behind. They stayed close together as they made their way through the cobblestone streets as quietly as possible. None of them spoke for fear of waking the sleeping residents or giving away their position if there were any watchmen in the city. She also knew of magic that could detect and even overhear distant voices, so they used hand signals when necessary.
r />   The windows overlooking the tight, winding passageways were all dark. While there was a main road leading through the town, Richard didn’t want to take it for fear of being spotted out in the open, so they took a route through the tight cluster of buildings stepping up the steep rises to the side of the pass. As far as Kahlan could tell, other than the main road through the pass, there were no large thoroughfares among the densely packed buildings, just a maze of narrow streets and alleys.

  Those narrow streets and alleyways weren’t laid out in any particular pattern she could discern. It seemed that the buildings were simply built where they could fit in atop the rocky terrain. That meant that to go in the desired direction, they needed to take a zigzag route among the stone buildings.

  Every once in a while, they caught a view of the moon as they continued making their way generally west by way of twists and turns. As difficult as it was to navigate among the tightly packed buildings, Kahlan found it preferable to being out in the open on the main road through the pass. If they could be spotted by any of the people of Bindamoon, they could also be spotted by the goddess.

  Richard pointed up at a window as he tiptoed under it. With his back close to the wall, he crossed his lips with a finger in warning. Kahlan glanced up and in the moonlight saw a heavyset man in a dark window scratching the back of his fat arm as he yawned. He stepped close to the window to look out at the mountains. He probably couldn’t sleep. Kahlan wished she could; she was exhausted and, on top of that, being pregnant with the twins meant that everything required extra effort. Her fear of being caught by the menacing and gifted Iron Jack kept her moving without complaining as she, too, put her back up against the wall while passing under the window.

  At the first opportunity, Richard hurriedly turned them all to the left around a corner and down a different street. He put a hand to their backs as they went by, urging each of them to hurry along so that the man wouldn’t see them if he happened to look down. Kahlan breathed a sigh of relief to have made it past unseen.