Stone of Tears

  "You had enough kissing. Time to do as you said. Time for me, now."

  Kahlan pulled her heels up against herself, spread her legs as wide as she could, and wiggled her bottom as he leered. "Please? You kisses are the best I've ever had. Just one more? Please?" She watched his chest heave. "Then I'll please you like no woman ever has. Just one more kiss."

  He flopped down on her, between her legs. His weight drove the wind from her lungs. "One more, and then you deliver."

  He crushed his whiskered face to hers. He was out of control. His lips were cutting hers against her teeth. She tried to ignore the burning heat of him pressing painfully against her.

  Kahlan slapped her hands to the sides of his muscular neck. Her lungs burned for air. This was her last chance. Her last breath. Fight with it, she told herself. Fight.

  For Richard.

  As she had done countless times, she released her restraint, although she felt no power pushing against it.

  It was like leaping into a dark, bottomless pit.

  There was thunder but no sound.

  The violent jolt to the air brought down a shower of stone dust.

  The men all cried out with the pain of being so close when her power was released.

  Kahlan almost screamed with joy. She could feel the magic in her middle again. It was weak, from having just been used, but she could feel it again. It was back. It had never left; Ranson had used magic to make her believe a lie.

  Tyler's jaw had gone slack as he pulled back, looking down into her eyes. "Mistress!" he whispered. "Command me."The other men were scrambling toward them.

  "Protect me!"

  Heads cracked against the walls, sending splashes of blood across the stone. Tyler snapped a man's arm. Wails of pain echoed around the room. There was a furious battle for a few minutes, until Kahlan was able to direct Tyler in accomplishing what she wanted—a truce.

  She didn't want him to fight all the men; if they succeeded in getting the better of him, then she was finished. She wanted them separated, the men keeping their distance, and Tyler guarding her. That was her best chance of surviving until she could recover her power.

  She screamed orders to the men, as well as Tyler. Six were left standing, in fighting form, and enraged. One was writhing on the ground, screaming in pain, a shattered bone jutting from his forearm, and the other four, including the one she had kicked in the face, were not moving.

  Kahlan told the men that she would keep Tyler at bay as long as they stayed in their corner. Reluctantly, they moved to the opposite side, dragging the others with them. The screams kept them convinced that they should bide their time before taking on the big man with the wild eyes. She made them throw her her smallclothes, under threat of sending Tyler to get them.

  Kahlan sat in the corner, her back against the wall. Tyler stood before her, in a half crouch, dancing on the balls of his feet, his arms out and ready. The men watched as they rested against the other wall. Kahlan knew that this uneasy truce could not go on for days. Sooner or later, Tyler would run out of energy. Then they would have him. Then they would have her. The men knew that, too.

  60

  The night wore on, with the men watching, and Tyler guarding her. She caught a few moments of uneasy sleep from time to time. Kahlan had no idea what time it was, but she judged it to be between the middle of the night and close to dawn.

  Though she was afraid, and knew that they were going to come to behead her sooner or later, she felt joy that her power was back, and that she had beaten them with that much of it. The good spirits hadn't helped her; she had helped herself. She felt self-satisfaction at what she had done. She had not given up.

  And the good spirits had left her to it, as they always did. Kahlan was furious with the good spirits. Though she had lived her whole life to see their ideals upheld, they never once helped her.

  Well, no more. She was finished with the good spirits, as she was finished with trying to help the ungrateful people of the Midlands. What had it gotten her? She had learned in the Council chambers what it had gotten her. It had gotten her the undying hatred of her people. The very people she fought for thought she harmed children. People didn't like Confessors, and were afraid of them for a variety of reasons, but she had been stunned to learn what people really believed about her.

  From now on, she was going to worry about herself, her friends, and Richard, and to the Keeper with the rest of them. He could have them all. She was through with it all.

  She was the Mother Confessor no longer. She was Kahlan.

  The torch sputtered out, plunging the pit into blackness.

  "Thank you again, good spirits!" she screamed at the top of her lungs. Her words echoed around the pit. "To the Keeper with you!"

  The men set upon Tyler in the dark. Kahlan didn't know what was happening. She could hear grunts and screams and thuds.

  She heard an echoing, banging sound. She couldn't understand what it was. And then she heard a muffled voice calling out her title. The familiar voice was coming from above.

  "Chandalen! Chandalen! I'm down here! Open the door!"

  "Mother Confessor!" came the voice from beyond the door. "How do I open the door!"

  Kahlan let out a shriek when a hand snatched her ankle and pulled her from her feet. Chandalen called out at the sound of her scream. Tyler grabbed the fingers around her ankle and bent them back until they snapped. The man screamed in the dark.

  "Chandalen! You need a key! Use the key!"

  "Key? What is this key!"

  "Chandalen!" She shoved a head away from her middle. "Chandalen! Remember when we were in the city with the dead people? Remember the Queen's room that was locked? Remember I showed you a key to open the door? Chandalen, one of the guards up there has a ring on his belt! It has the key! Hurry!"

  Kahlan recognized Tyler's grunt as he was slammed to the wall. She could hear the bone jarring blows of his fist. She could hear a metallic noise from above.

  "Mother Confessor! It will not turn!"

  "Then it's the wrong one! Try another!"

  Someone crashed into her, knocking her to the floor. She clawed at his eyes. He punched at her middle.

  A sudden shaft of light descended into the pit. Tyler saw the man on her and threw him off. A ladder dropped down.

  "Tyler! Keep them away from the ladder!"

  Kahlan threw herself onto the ladder and scrambled up. The men piled on Tyler. She heard him groan and then his neck snap. Her foot slipped through a rung when a fist punched the back of her calf. Hands grabbed at her ankles. Kahlan kicked the face of the man right behind and then clambered up. He tumbled back, taking the others with him. They charged back up in a rush.

  Kahlan stretched for the hand extended down. Chandalen clamped onto her wrist and yanked her through the doorway. He stabbed the man right behind her. As the man toppled back, Chandalen slammed the door closed. Panting, she fell into his arms.

  "Come, Mother Confessor. We must get out of this place."

  There were dead guards everywhere, all killed silently, from behind, by Chandalen's troga. He held her hand as they ran through the dank, dark halls and up stairs. She wondered how Chandalen had managed to find his way down here. Someone must have shown him the way.

  Around a corner, they came to the sight of a bloody battle. Bodies were sprawled everywhere. Only one man was standing. Orsk. His great battle axe dripped with gore. Orsk nearly leapt out of his skin with joy when he saw her. She was almost thrilled to see his scarred face.

  "I made him wait," Chandalen explained as he pulled her through the bloody mess. "I told him that I would bring you, if he waited and guarded this hall."

  Chandalen frowned at her. Kahlan realized he was staring at her hair, or what was left of it. He said nothing, though, and she was glad for that. It felt more than strange not to feel the weight of her hair; it was heartbreaking. She had loved her hair; so had Richard.

  Kahlan bent and took a war axe from one of the dead guards. With
her power not yet recovered, she felt better with a weapon in her hands.

  Chandalen, dragging Kahlan along by her hand, with Orsk protecting the rear, burst through a door. Directly outside, the captain of the guards had a woman pressed up against the wall. Her arms were wrapped around her neck as she kissed him; his hands were up her dress.

  As they charged past, and the startled captain looked up, Chandalen drove his long knife into the man's ribs.

  "Come!" he said to the woman, "We have her!"

  The woman fell into line with the rest of them as they wound their way up through the Palace. Puzzled, Kahlan looked back. The woman in the hooded cloak was the woman who had fainted—Jebra Bevinvier.

  "What's going on?" Kahlan asked Jebra.

  "Forgive me, Mother Confessor, for fainting. I had a vision of you being beheaded. It was so horrifying, that I fainted. I knew I must help, so that the vision would not come true. You told me that you had a friend in the woods. I went and found him."

  They all flattened up against a wall and waited for a patrol to pass through an adjoining room. When their echoing footsteps faded, Chandalen turned with a hot look to Jebra.

  "What were you doing with that man!"

  She blinked in surprise. "He was the captain of the guards. He was making the rounds with a whole detachment. I convinced him to send the guards away for a while. I did the only thing I could think of to keep fifty men from trapping you down there."

  Chandalen grumbled that maybe it made sense. As they headed on, Kahlan told Jebra that she had done a brave thing, and that she understood what courage it took to do it. Jebra protested that she was no heroine, and didn't want to be one.

  At an intersection with a vaulted corridor, Mistress Sanderholt was waiting. Letting out a cry, Kahlan threw her arms around the woman. Mistress Sanderholt held her bandaged hands out.

  "Not now, Mother Confessor. You must escape. This way is clear."

  As the others rushed in the direction Mistress Sanderholt indicated, Kahlan went the other way. They all turned and ran after.

  "What are you doing!" Chandalen protested. "We must escape!"

  "I must get something from my room."

  "What could be more important than escaping!"

  "Grandfather's knife," she said as she ran.

  When they realized they were not going to be able to change her mind, they all followed after as she led them up through the labyrinth of smaller and less frequently patrolled halls. Several times they did encounter guards. Orsk fiercely hacked them to pieces when they charged after her.

  As she came around a corner at the top of a stairway, a surprised guard spun to her. With all her strength, Kahlan buried her axe in the center of his chest. His sword skittered across the floor as he went down on his back.

  As he thrashed on the floor, Kahlan put a foot against his heaving stomach and tried to pull the axe out. Bubbles of air and blood frothed forth, but the axe was stuck tight in his breast bone, so she scooped up his Keltish sword instead. Chandalen lifted an eyebrow. Before they reached her room, she had cause to use the sword, and with similar, deadly effect.

  The others waited in the outer room, recovering their wind, while she rushed into her bedroom. She froze when she saw her blue wedding dress. She swept it up and held it to her breast. That was what she had come for. She was never returning to this place, and didn't want to leave it. Kahlan shed a tear on the dress, rolled it into a tight bundle, and stuffed it in her pack.

  All the other clothes from her pack were cleaned, too, and laid out for her. She stuffed them in the pack after strapping the bone knife around her left arm. She threw the mantle around her shoulders. Hurriedly, she strung the bow.

  She swept through the outer room, her pack and quiver on her back, and her bow on her shoulder. She had everything she wanted. Everything that meant anything to her. She paused a moment, looking at her room for the last time as she idly turned the round bone on her necklace, and then led the others out and down a back way, headed for an outside door.

  She lost count of how many men Chandalen took out with his troga or knife. When a big guard charged out of a side hall and tried to roll them down, Kahlan ran him though with the sword. The four of them were grim death moving through the Palace. The great alarm bells rang frantically in the tower.

  On the landing leading to the great staircase, Orsk lopped off a guard's head. The body rolled down the stairs, spilling a trail of blood, as if unrolling a red carpet for them. The headless man flopped to a stop against the statue of Magda Searus, the first Mother Confessor.

  They ran down the stone steps, the sound echoing in the vast chamber. Near the bottom, a sudden stab of pain took Kahlan's feet out from under her. She tumbled down the last few steps. The others shouted and rushed to her, wanting to know how she was hurt. She told them that she had just stumbled.

  She hadn't stumbled.

  Kahlan pulled her bow off her shoulder and pointed with it. "Down that hall. All of you, head down that hall. Turn right at the end. I'll catch up with you. Go."

  "We're not leaving you!" Chandalen insisted.

  "I said go!" Kahlan stood against the blistering pain in her legs. "Orsk, get them moving, now. I'll catch up. I will be displeased with you if you fail to get them out of here."

  Orsk raised his axe and growled. The other two backed toward the hall as they pleaded with her. They protested that they had risked their lives to rescue her, and they would not leave her, now.

  "Orsk! Get them out of here!"

  "Why!" Chandalen and Jebra yelled together.

  Kahlan pointed with her bow. Across the great chamber, up in one of the distant arcades, stood a shadowed figure. "Because otherwise he'll kill you."

  "We must escape! He will kill you, too!"

  "If he lives, he will hunt us down, with magic, and kill us all."

  A bolt of yellow lightning arced across the broad room. Stone crashed down, nearly covering the opening where the others stood.

  Kahlan drew one of Chandalen's flat bladed, man-killer arrows from her quiver.

  "Mother Confessor!" Chandalen screamed. "You cannot make that shot! I could not make that shot! You must run!"

  She didn't tell them that the wizard was sending slashing shards of pain through her, and she couldn't run. It was all she could do just to stand. "Orsk! Get them out! Now! I'll catch up!"

  Another bolt of lightning sent stone flying everywhere, and the three of them running down the hall, Orsk pushing them along.

  Kahlan put a knee to the floor to steady herself as she nocked the arrow. She drew the string to her cheek. The blade of the arrow was horizontal in her line of sight. She could hardly see Ranson, he was so far away, and the pain was blurring her vision.

  But she could hear him laugh as he sent violent splinters of magic ripping through her. It sounded like Darken Rahl's laugh. She bit the inside of her cheek against the pain, against the scream trying to fight its way out. She couldn't hold back the clipped whimpers.

  "An archer, Mother Confessor?" he called from the distance. His laughter echoed off the stone around her. "Your freedom was brief, Mother Confessor. I hope it was worth it to you. You will spend a good long time in the pit, thinking about it."

  He was too far away. She had never made a shot from this far. Richard had. She had seen him do it. Please, Richard, help me. Show me how, like you did that day. Help me.

  Stone vines tore from the panel next to her and whipped around her middle, squeezing. The shearing pain made her shriek.

  She brought up the bow again. With her last breath, if need be, she told herself. Her arms shook. She could hardly see the wizard. He was too far away. The vines held her tight. She couldn't run, even if she wanted to.

  Help me Richard.

  Another brutal wave of pain seared up her legs and through her insides. Burning tears ran down her cheeks as she shuddered and gasped. She couldn't hold the bow up.

  Lightning arced around the great staircase. The sound wa
s deafening. Stone chips whistled past. Clouds of dust rose as a column collapsed with a crash.

  She heard Richard's words in her mind: You have to be able to shoot no matter what is happening. Just you and the target, that's all there is. Nothing else matters. You have to be able to block everything else out. You can't think about how afraid you are, or what will happen if you miss. You have to be able to make the shot under pressure.

  She remembered how he had whispered to her, whispered for her to call the target.

  With a jolt, the target came to her, as if the wizard were standing right in front of her. She could see the flashes of liquid light jumping from his fingertips.

  She could see her target—the bump in his throat bobbing up and down as he laughed. She let her breath flow out, as Richard had taught her. The arrow found the notch in the air.

  As gentle as a babies breath, the arrow left the bow.

  She saw the feathers clear the bow. She saw the string hit her wrist. The stone vine wrapped around her throat. She kept her eyes on the target. She watched the feathers of the arrow as it flew. The pain tearing her insides rose with his laughter.

  The wizard's laughter cut off abruptly. Kahlan heard the thunk of the blade hitting his throat. When the stone vine suddenly dropped away, she fell forward on her hands and knees, tears dripping from her face, as she waited for the pain to melt away. It went with merciful swiftness.

  Kahlan staggered to her feet. "To the Keeper with you, too, wizard Neville Ranson!"

  There was an ear-splitting crack, like a lightning strike, but instead of a flash of light, a ripple of total darkness swept across the room. Bumps rippled up her arms. The lamps flickered back on.

  Kahlan knew—the Keeper had indeed taken wizard Neville Ranson.

  She heard a grunt, and turned just in time to see a guard leaping down the steps toward her. Kahlan ducked and came up under him as he landed. She used his momentum to loft him over the railing, into the well below.

  He snatched at her as he went over, but his fingers caught only her necklace. It tore from her, and went down with him. Kahlan bent over the railing, seeing him smack the stone floor, three flights down. She saw the necklace tumble from his hand when he hit, and slide across the floor.