“Do you think those might stop the dead?”
Nicci’s blue eyes turned to the nearest man with the red-fletched arrow nocked in his bow. “Possibly.”
“If I might ask, Lord Rahl?” the new general said as he scratched the hollow of his cheek. “What do you mean about stopping the dead?”
Richard skipped the explanations and went right to the part that mattered most. “The man who is coming to lay siege to the palace can reanimate the dead. Once brought back in this way, they are incredibly difficult to bring down. Regular weapons don’t work because these corpses are driven by magic mixed with occult powers.”
Nathan turned and stared off down one of the halls, frowning.
A number of the soldiers shared looks at this news.
“How do we stop them, then?” General Zimmer asked.
“Stabbing them doesn’t work, since they are already dead. If forced to fight them, do your best to hack off limbs. Fire stops them, so if you can throw pitch on them and set them ablaze that might work. Nathan and Nicci can lay down wizard’s fire, and that certainly works, but the problem is with their numbers. My sword works against them. At least it would if it was with me.”
Richard started down the broad hallway but took only a few steps before coming to a halt and turning back. “What is that odd smell? It smells like something is burning.”
Nathan cast a brief glance toward a marble stairwell. “Do you know the crypts where the Rahl ancestors are laid to rest?”
Richard nodded. “Yes. Each is in a separate vault, each in their own ornate stone coffin.”
“Well, some of the stone down there is melting.”
Richard looked up from under his brow. “Melting?”
Nathan pulled on a long strand of gray hair. “Yes, melting.”
Richard raked his fingers back through his own hair as he tried to remember something about that happening before, a very long time ago. He finally looked up at the tall prophet.
“Shortly after I had killed Darken Rahl, I remember a man who said he was the master of the crypt staff coming to report the stone walls down in Panis Rahl’s crypt melting.”
Nathan’s bushy brows rose. “Really?”
Richard rubbed his chin as he stared off into the memory. “Yes. Zedd told the man to use white stone to seal it over.” Richard snapped his fingers and looked back at Nathan. “Zedd told him it had to be white stone from the quarry of the prophets. Zedd gave the man a pouch with some kind of magic dust and told him to mix it in with the mortar. He said to seal the crypt shut or the whole palace would melt.”
“That’s the stone that’s melting,” Nathan confirmed. “That wall of white stone. It’s so hot down in that passageway that men can only go in there just long enough to throw a bucket of water at it to try to cool it down, but that’s not helping much.”
“Is it some kind of magic that’s melting it?” Richard asked.
Nathan shrugged. “None I recognize. We have been rather distracted by other matters, so I haven’t been able to investigate it.” He held his arm out in invitation to continue what they had been going to do.
Richard turned to the men of the First File watching him.
“Could someone get me a sword, please?”
Almost instantly, a dozen of the nearest men pulled off their weapon belts and held out the hilts of their sheathed weapons to Richard.
Richard took a sword from a man who still had a battle-axe hanging on a hook at his hip. Richard thanked the man as he strapped the belt around his waist. He drew the sword and held it up, turning it, taking a quick look at it and checking its weight. It was a blade, and that was what mattered.
Richard slid the sword back into its sheath. “Let’s go.”
The men moved aside to let him and those with him through. Rikka immediately stepped out in front of him. Absent Cara, she was determined to make certain he was protected. Cassia and Vale fell in behind Kahlan to guard Richard and Kahlan from behind. It had been a long time since the two Mord-Sith had been in the palace–since Darken Rahl had ruled. Although they had, in a way, taken possession of Richard in Cara’s place, they seemed willing to let Rikka take charge. How they wordlessly determined such things, Richard didn’t know.
The large force of the First File closed in behind them.
Richard had a lot of questions for Nathan, but he was more interested in what the man thought was so urgent that Richard see.
CHAPTER
51
Nathan rammed his shoulder against the heavy oak door. It finally, reluctantly, opened outward on rusty hinges. In the silence, the bottom scraping against the stone floor of the rampart sounded all the louder. As soon as the door opened, wind rushed in, lifting Kahlan’s and Nicci’s hair from their shoulders. That wind carried an unmistakable stink. The smell was so thick Richard could almost taste it.
Fleecy clouds of bright white with tattered, dark shadowing lay stacked in layers across the sky. At least it wasn’t heavily overcast like the Dark Lands. By the direction of the light, Richard judged that it had to be late afternoon.
Nathan grabbed Richard’s sleeve. “Easy, Richard. No good can come from letting them see you.”
Richard nodded as he carefully moved out onto the east rampart. This particular projection in the wall stuck out almost even with the edge of the immense plateau below them, itself rising up from the Azrith Plain. Calling the place atop the vast plateau a palace was misleading. The palace, with its sprawling footprint, myriad of connected sections, levels, towers, bridges, all with different roofs, multistory segments that rose up in various places, and many open courtyards, was actually a city.
The central stairway rising up deep inside the plateau itself probably held more people than the palace. That central area in the plateau was filled with shops and living quarters for their owners and guests. Many people who came to the palace to trade only frequented the interior shops and rarely made it all the way up to the top.
Archers of the First File crouched in the battlements overlooking the plains far below. They all had arrows nocked and ready. The men kept out of sight from what might be down on the plain, but peeked out from time to time to check.
Richard moved in a crouch as he made his way across the rampart to a wide merlon. He stood up behind it so that he couldn’t be seen from below. Kahlan and Nicci, arms protectively around each other’s waists as they crouched, hurried out to join him. The Mord-Sith waited back just inside the door, watching them.
Nathan leaned close and spoke in a low voice. “Careful now. You never know who may be looking up here or what they might unleash against you.”
Richard nodded and then carefully leaned over to look out the crenellation between the tall, thick merlons to the Azrith Plain below. From that vantage point one could see for a vast distance. The weather was clear enough that he could see all the way to the mountains at the horizon.
He froze at what he saw below.
The plains were covered with half-naked people. It was a gathering of half people, in greater numbers than he had known existed. They stood in dead silence all across the plains, arms hanging at their sides, all watching the palace. It was so quiet that Richard could hear the call of distant ravens hunting the plains.
Most of the half people wore only pants, or remnants of pants. The majority of their heads were shaved, but some had topknots or closely cropped hair and beards. Richard knew from experience that some of them could wield occult powers. Some of them could even raise the dead.
The unwashed horde was the unmistakable stench he had smelled. He had bad memories of those stinking swarms chasing him through the woods. They were relentless, not caring how many casualties they took. None of them cared much about what happened to their fellow half people, or in their lust to steal a soul, even their own safety. Each one of them figured that any others that fell merely meant that they had a better chance to capture a soul for themselves.
While they had a common purpose, when it
came down to it, their single-minded purpose was getting a soul for themselves. Driven by that need, the Shun-tuk followed their spirit king and did his bidding. No doubt, Sulachan had promised them all the souls they could capture along the way.
Richard pulled back out of sight, pressing his back to the wall. He snatched another quick look several times, scanning the masses of naked flesh looking for two who would be darker and stand out. He saw neither Sulachan or Hannis Arc.
Kahlan leaned over and peeked out. “Dear spirits,” she said as she pulled back, her eyes wide. “I knew they had a lot, but I didn’t know they had that many.”
Richard turned to sneak another look. He rolled back against the wall. Kahlan put an arm around him, pressing in close.
“You’re right,” he said. “That’s a lot of half people wanting to eat all of us.”
“They outnumber everyone in the palace many times over, that’s for certain,” Nathan said.
Richard gestured to the west. “What about around on the other sides of the palace? Are there any over there on that side?”
Nathan leaned close with a sour expression. He pointed a finger down and then circled it.
“They are all around us. I can’t even guess at their numbers. Common sense says that they can’t get in here.”
“But prophecy says otherwise,” Richard guessed.
Nathan admitted it with a grunt.
“How long have they been here?” Richard asked.
“A few days,” Nathan told him.
“Don’t tell me,” Nicci said, “that was about the time the walls down in the crypts started to melt.”
Nathan inclined his head toward her. “You even needed to ask?”
Nicci’s face contorted with displeasure as she considered what they might do.
“Fortunately,” Nathan said, “the great door down below is closed and the bridge is up. There is no way for them to get in here. I have heard people here say that the People’s Palace has survived long sieges before and it can survive this one.”
“I don’t believe that for a moment,” Richard said. “Someone who engineered his return from the world of the dead and managed to come through the veil to get into the world of life will certainly be able to find a way to get in here.”
“Well I don’t know how,” Nathan insisted.
“Neither do I, but have no doubt he will. We need to start figuring out how we are going to defend ourselves inside the palace once they get in. If we can halt them at some key choke points, and then use wizard’s fire, it might be possible to keep them at bay, and even reduce their numbers.”
Nathan took a rather long, worried look out of the crenellation. “You should know, Richard, that this is the first time they have been quiet. For days they’ve been down there hooting and hollering, screaming for our blood, taunting us day and night, promising to eat us all. It’s strange the way they’ve gone silent all of a sudden.”
“Not strange at all,” Richard said. “They went silent because I’m here. They know I’m up here right now.”
Nathan looked dubious. “You came through the sliph and you haven’t shown yourself. How would they know you’re here?”
“Sulachan would know,” Richard said.
“How?”
Richard ignored the question as he met the old wizard’s gaze. “Do you know anything about the Cerulean scrolls?”
Nathan frowned. “That’s an odd question to ask right now.”
“Do you?” Richard pressed.
Nathan drew his fingers and thumb down his chin as he stared off in thought. “Well,” he finally said, “several hundred years ago there was one at the Palace of the Prophets. None of the Sisters had the slightest idea how to read it. At the time, neither did I.”
“Do you know what it was about?”
Nathan squinted one eye as he searched his memory. “Like I said, I couldn’t read it, but I remember some of the Sisters, the ones who told me it was a Cerulean scroll, referred to it as the Warheart scroll.”
“If they couldn’t read it, then how do they know it was called the Warheart scroll?”
Nathan shrugged. “I don’t know, Richard. I don’t even know where it came from.”
Richard let out a sigh. “And I suppose that it disappeared and no one knew what ever happened to it.”
“As a matter of fact, I believe it was traded for a number of rare books of prophecy.”
If the situation hadn’t been so serious, Richard might have laughed out loud. “That figures.”
“Why?” Nathan asked.
“I’ve read the Warheart scroll. I was just wondering if you had seen any others like it, here at the palace.”
Nathan leaned in with surprise. “You found it and you read it? What was it about?”
“It was about me,” Richard said as he stretched up looking over rooftops. He pointed. “That’s the glass roof of the Garden of Life.”
Nathan looked back over his shoulder at where Richard had pointed. “Yes, what of it?”
“I need to go there. Right now. I need to go see Regula.”
Kahlan came away from the wall, seized his shirt at the shoulder, and pulled him around toward her. “We can go see the omen machine later. Right now we need to get you to the containment field so that Nicci can get that poison out of you.”
“Besides,” Nicci pointed out, “to understand the omen machine and how it works you would first need to go to the Temple of the Winds to recover the other half of the book, Regula–the half that tells how Regula works.”
Richard looked back at Nicci. “That book hidden away in the Temple of the Winds is a false lead, much like The Book of Counted Shadows was a decoy. It’s a fake meant to protect Regula. I don’t even need to see it to tell you it’s full of misinformation.”
“Without seeing it?” Nicci looked incredulous. “How can you possibly say that?”
“Zedd taught me that a lot of powerful magic is protected by such misleading information. Such stories send people off track looking for supposedly authentic information. Even if they do find it, it’s actually a fake like The Book of Counted Shadows, just meant to mislead people and prevent them from knowing how something really works.”
Nathan lifted his arms. “But how can you know that is the case with this book, Regula? The half we have reveals that the other half, hidden in the Temple of the Winds, fills in the parts we don’t understand. How would you know that it doesn’t really reveal how Regula works?”
Richard waited patiently until the old wizard was done. “Because I already know how it works.”
Nathan’s arms came down. “How could you know such a thing?”
“Because I’ve read the Warheart scroll.”
Nathan stammered, looking like he had so many questions he didn’t know where to start.
“We need to go,” Richard told everyone before Nathan could put voice to all his questions. “I need to get to the omen machine.”
Kahlan snatched his sleeve again. “No you don’t, Richard. First we go to the containment field. I can see in your eyes how much worse that poison has gotten, and how sick you are. I remember what it was like and how it grows. The poison is advancing and you can’t afford to waste any more time. Against all odds, we’ve finally made it here. Now that we’re here we are going to the containment field and have Nicci heal you before we do anything else. If you’re right and Sulachan’s forces do get in, we all need you well so that you can fight.”
“You’re right,” Richard said with a sigh. “But Regula is on the way. I just need to stop there first to see that it’s safe and nothing has happened to it, and then we will go right to the containment field. All right?”
Kahlan folded her arms as she peered at him from under her brow for a moment. Finally her arms came unfolded and she shook her head as she was overcome with a smile.
“All right, Richard. We’ll stop on our way if it will make you happy.”
CHAPTER
52
At the bottom of the wedge-shaped, circular stairs, the proximity spheres around the excavated, dead-still room beneath the Garden of Life began to glow. The ancient room made of simple stone blocks had been discovered only when its roof collapsed. It was simple and without any decorations, and they had at first thought it was an abandoned storage room of some kind. There were no doors, and there was no way in except down the narrow shaft of spiral stone stairs.
The first time he had seen the room, it reminded Richard of a crypt of some sort that had been sealed and forgotten. In some ways that was exactly what it was, but it was actually much more than that.
Sitting in the center of the plain room was the imposing, square omen machine. The shielded, heavy metal that housed the power of Regula was decoration enough. Each side of the machine had an emblem in the language of Creation, identifying it, almost as a ward to keep everyone away. Around the edges of the room in neat stacks against the walls were thousands of blank metal strips that when fed through the omen machine allowed it to give prophecy directly.
At one time, the machine must have been used for that purpose. By the supply of blank metal strips, it must have once been in heavy use. Richard wondered how many of the books of prophecy, especially those in the People’s Palace, originated with Regula.
Even if books of prophecy were not directly transcribed from the machine, and even if prophecy was not given directly by the machine, Regula was the conduit bringing prophecy into the world of life. Even if it was buried and no longer used to give prophecy directly, it was still in the world of life generating prophecy through the gifted. Even if it had been sent from the underworld to protect it, its presence still constituted a breach between worlds that, much like the poison of death in him, was slowly working toward the extinction of life.
Richard checked the output tray to see if the omen machine had issued any prophecies in his absence. The slot was empty.
Richard leaned over, placing both hands on the cool metal of the machine’s flat top. At his touch, the ground shook with a hard thud as the machine came to life.
He now knew that the apparatus itself was not really Regula. Regula was an underworld power and there was no such mechanical mechanism in the world of the dead. The machine itself was something that had been built by ancient wizards called makers.