Soul of the Fire

  “You do?” She grinned her wicked grin. “I like the idea of that. You being excited, I mean.”

  She watched as he opened her robe and kissed her breasts. He came up for breath.

  “To know the Sovereign himself chooses my wife, my beautiful Tess, and by the direct word of the Creator at that, is the best compliment a loyal Ander man could ever have.”

  “Dalton,” she said, breathless from his kisses and caresses. “I’ve never seen you like this.” She drew him closer. “I like it. I like it a lot. Come here, let me show you how much.”

  Before she began, she pulled back.

  “Dalton, Bertrand was pleased, too. He said he liked your attitude. He said he found it exciting, too.”

  “We all need our Sovereign to guide us into the future and bring us the Creator’s words. I’m so glad you can help relieve the Sovereign’s stress in this life.”

  She was panting now. “Yes, Dalton, I do. I really do. It’s so… I don’t know, so wonderful to have such a high calling.”

  “Why don’t you tell me all about it, darling, as we make love. I’d like to hear it all.”

  “Oh, Dalton, I’m so glad.”

  Dalton allowed himself a couple of days to recover after being with Tess. It had been an experience he once would have found the height of his existence. It once would have been a source of joy.

  After the experience, though, he needed to deprive himself of Tess for several days in order to be in a state of heightened need for a task such as he must now perform.

  The hallway was deserted outside her quarters and offices. Bertrand was in the opposite wing, with Teresa, having the stresses of his high office relieved. Dalton had made sure it was a time when Teresa was with Bertrand. The thought of it would help him focus on the work at hand.

  Bertrand and his wife made sure they rarely encountered one another. Having their quarters in opposite wings helped.

  She did sometimes visit him, though. Their screaming battles were legendary among the staff. Bertrand one day sported a cut over his eye. He was usually able to duck the objects she hurled at him, but on that occasion she had caught him off guard.

  Partly because of Hildemara’s popularity, but mostly because of her dangerous connections, Bertrand dared not confront, cross, or do away with his wife. She had warned him he had better hope she didn’t die a sudden death of natural causes—or any other causes—lest his own health suddenly fail, too.

  It was a threat Bertrand did not take lightly. For the most part, he simply avoided her. There were times, though, when his penchant for risk caused him to make foolish comments or in some other way embarrass her, and then she went looking for him. It mattered not where he was, either—in his bed, his privy, or a meeting with wealthy backers. Bertrand generally avoided troubles with her by trying to take care, but there were times when he provoked her ire.

  It was a relationship that had worked on this estranged level for years, and had borne them a daughter neither cared for. Dalton had only seen her recently when they brought her back from boarding school in order to stand with them at public addresses decrying the horrors of an uncaring Lord Rahl and the Mother Confessor.

  Now the Lord Rahl had been rejected by the people. Now, the Mother Confessor was… well, he wasn’t sure what had become of her, but he was reasonably sure she was dead. It had cost Dalton some good men, but in war there were always losses. He would replace them if need be.

  Serin Rajak had died, too—a terrible infection that turned his blind face to a festering mass—but Dalton couldn’t say he was at all unhappy about that. His grieving followers reported it a lingering and painful death. No, Dalton was not at all unhappy about that.

  Hildemara opened the door herself. A good sign, he thought. She was wearing a dress more revealing than usual. Another good sign, he hoped, since she had known he was coming.

  “Dalton, how kind of you to ask to pay me a visit. I’ve wondered how you’ve been getting along and thought a talk long overdue. So, how have you been, since your wife has been serving the needs of our Sovereign?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve come to my way of dealing with it.”

  Hildemara smiled, a cat seeing a mouse. “Ah… and so the lovely gifts?”

  “To thank you. For—Might I come in?”

  She opened the door wider. He stepped inside, looking around at the unrestrained opulence. He had never been in the private quarters of the Sovereign and his wife.

  Of course, his own wife was quite familiar with them, and had described them—Bertrand’s, anyway—in great detail.

  “You were saying? About thanking me?”

  Dalton clasped his hands behind his back. “For opening my eyes.” He gestured behind himself and smiled. “And your door, I might add.”

  She chuckled politely. “I sometimes open my door to handsome men. I find it a… sometimes rewarding experience.”

  He closed the distance and took up her hand, kissing the back of it while looking her in the eye. He thought it a pathetically contrived act, but she responded as if she believed it sincere, and as if she were well pleased by the token of respect.

  Dalton had researched her private activities. It had taken every favor owed him, as well as some direct threats, and even an appointment of standing. He now knew what she liked, and what she didn’t. He knew she didn’t like aggressive lovers. She liked them on the young side, and attentive. She liked to be treated with the utmost reverence.

  She like to be fawned over.

  He approached this visit like an elaborate feast, with each course in order, and building to the main attractions. In this way, with a plan, he found it easier to proceed.

  “My lady, I fear to be so forward with a woman of your station, but I must be honest.”

  She went to a table of inlaid silver and gold. From a silver tray, she picked a cut-glass bottle and poured herself a glass of rum. She also poured one for him, without asking, and handed it to him with a smile.

  “Please, Dalton. We have a long history. I would like nothing better than your honesty. After all, I was honest with you about your wife.”

  “Yes,” he said, “you were, weren’t you.”

  She took a sip and then laid a wrist over his shoulder.

  “And are you still languishing about that? Or have you come to face the realities of life?”

  “I must admit, Hildemara, that I have been… lonely, what with my wife so often… occupied. I never expected to find myself with a wife so often unavailable.”

  She clucked sympathetically. “You poor dear. I know just how you feel. My husband is so often occupied himself.”

  Dalton turned away, as if embarrassed. “Since my wife is no longer bound by our vows, I find I have… desires she is unable to satisfy. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I’m not experienced in this sort of thing. Most men, I guess, would find this sort of endeavor comes naturally to them. I don’t.”

  She came close up behind him, putting her mouth next to his ear. “Do go on, Dalton. I’m listening. Don’t be shy—we’re old friends.”

  He turned to come face-to-face with her, giving her the chance to display her cleavage—something she believed was greatly appreciated.

  “Since my wife no longer is bound by her vows, being called upon by the Sovereign, I don’t see why I should be bound by mine. Especially when I have… longings.”

  “Well, of course not.”

  “And you once told me that I should come to you first, if anything changed with the status of my vows. Well, if you’re still interested, things have changed.”

  Her answer was to kiss him. He found it less repulsive than he feared. By closing his eyes he was able to actually enjoy it, after a fashion.

  He was surprised, though, when she shifted immediately to the more advanced matters of the encounter. It would make little difference in the end result. If she wanted to go straight to it, that was fine by him.

  69

  It was as forbidding a place as Richard h
ad heard, the highlands above the Nareef Valley: a bleak wasteland. The wind howled in dirty gusts.

  He would expect Joseph Ander to pick such a place.

  The mountains surrounding the dead lake were just as dead. They were rocky, brown, and barren of life, their peaks all crowned with snow. The thousands of runnels coming down the slopes sparkled in the sunlight, like fangs.

  Juxtaposed with the bleak wasteland was the green of the paka plants, which looked almost like water lilies in the vast waters stretching across the wide lap of the surrounding mountains.

  Richard had left the horses down lower and climbed the narrow foot trail he found that led up to the lake. He had tied the horses on loose tethers and removed their tack, so that if he failed to return, they could eventually escape.

  Only one thing drove him on, and that was his love for Kahlan. He had to banish the chimes so that he could heal her. It was his sole purpose in life. He stood now on the sterile soil beside the poison waters, knowing what he had to do.

  He had to outthink, outcreate Joseph Ander.

  There was no key to the riddle of the chimes; there was no answer. There was no solution waiting to be found. Joseph Ander left no seam in his tapestry of magic.

  His only chance was to do what Joseph Ander never would have expected. Richard had studied the man enough to understand the way he thought. He knew what Ander believed, and what he expected people would try. Richard could do none of those things and expect to succeed. Richard would do that which Joseph Ander chided the wizards to do, but which they couldn’t see.

  He only hoped he had the strength to see it through to the end. He had ridden hard in the day, switching horses so they would make it and yet be able to take him back. At night he had walked them until he could walk no more.

  He was exhausted, and hoped only that he could hold out long enough. Long enough for Kahlan.

  From the gold-worked leather pouch on his belt he pulled white sorcerer’s sand. With the sand, Richard carefully began drawing a Grace. Starting with the rays representing the gift, he drew it exactly opposite from the way Zedd told him it must be drawn. He stood in the center, laying the lines of the gift inward, toward himself.

  He drew the star, representing the Creator, next, and then the circle of life, and the square for the veil, and lastly, the outer circle for the beginning of the underworld.

  Imagination, Joseph Ander had said, was what made a great wizard, for only a wizard with imagination was able to transcend the limitations of tradition.

  A Grace might rise in obedience to an inventive spell.

  Richard intended to raise more than that.

  From his place inside the Grace, Richard lifted his fists to the sky.

  “Reechani! Sentrosi! Vasi! I call you forth!”

  He knew what they needed. Joseph Ander had told him.

  “Reechani! Sentrosi! Vasi! I call you forth and offer you my soul!”

  The water rippled as the wind rose. The water moved with deliberate intent. The wind coming across the water ignited into roiling flame.

  They were coming.

  Richard, charged with need and with anger, lowered his arms, pointing his fists off toward the edge of the lake, where it flowed at last over the rocky lip and on down into the Nareef Valley. His entire being focused there.

  Through his need and his anger, he called the Subtractive side of his power, the side from the darkest things, the side from the underworld, from the shadows in the dark forever of the netherworld.

  Black lightning exploded, the bolts from his fists twisting together in a rope of howling annihilation focused by his need, powered by his wrath.

  The edge of the mountain lake erupted in violence. The rock beyond disintegrated in a shower of steam and rubble from the touch of the black lightning. In an instant, the lower lake shore at the edge was no more. The destructive force of the Subtractive Magic vaporized it out of existence.

  With a thundering roar, the lake began to empty.

  The water churned as it pulled itself over the side. The edge foamed and frothed. The paka plants swirled with the water, tearing from the lake bottom. The vast lake of poisonous water plummeted over the brink.

  The fire coming across the lake, the wind on the water, and the churning water itself slowed as they approached. These were the essence of the chimes, the distillation that spoke for them.

  “Come to me,” Richard commanded. “I offer you my soul.”

  As the chimes began to circle ever closer, Richard drew something else from the pouch at his belt.

  And then, out in the lake, as it emptied, leaving a muddy bottom where poisonous water receded, there came a shimmering to the air just above the falling water. Something began to coalesce. To take form in the world of life.

  Wavering in the air above the surface of the water, a figure began to appear. A robed figure. An old man made of smoke and glimmering light. A figure in pain.

  Richard threw his fists up again. “Reechani! Sentrosi! Vasi! Come to me!”

  And they did. Around him swept the substance of death. It was almost more than Richard could take, standing there in the center of a maelstrom of death. It was as abhorrent a feeling as he had ever felt.

  The chimes called to him with seductive sounds from another world. Richard let them. He smiled at their summons.

  He let them come, these thieves of souls.

  And then he lifted his arm to point.

  “Your master.”

  The chimes howled around him with rage. They recognized the one rising up before them.

  “There he is, slaves. Your master.”

  “Who calls me!” came a cry from across the water.

  “Richard Rahl, descendant of Alric. I am the one who has come to be your master, Joseph Ander.”

  “You have found me in my sanctuary. You are the first. I commend you.”

  “And I condemn you, Joseph Ander, to your place in the afterlife, where all must go when their time here is done.”

  Chimes of laughter rang out over the lake.

  “Finding me is one thing, disturbing me another. But to dictate to me is altogether different. You have not the power to begin to do such a thing. You cannot even envision what I can create.”

  “Ah, but I have,” Richard called out over the falling water. “Water, hear me. Air, see what I show you. Fire, feel the truth of it.”

  Around him, the three chimes turned and spun, wary of what he had to offer them.

  Again, Richard thrust out his hand. “This is your master, the one who appropriated you to his bidding, instead of yours. There is his soul, stripped bare for you.”

  Concern darkened the face of Joseph Ander’s form. “What are you doing? What do you think you can accomplish with this?”

  “Truth, Joseph Ander. I strip you of the lie of your existence.”

  Richard lifted a hand, opening it toward Joseph Ander, opening the hand that held the balance—the black sorcerer’s sand. Richard let a trickle of black lightning crackle between them.

  “There he is, Reechani. Hear him. There he is, Vasi. See him. There he is, Sentrosi, feel him through my touch.”

  Joseph Ander tried to throw back magic of his own, but he had consigned himself to another world, one of his own making. He could not bridge that void. But Richard had called him, and could reach through.

  “Now, my chimes, this is your choice. My soul, or his. The man who would not surrender his soul to the afterlife. The man who would not go to your master in the underworld, but became your master in this world, where he enslaved you for all this time.

  “Or my soul, standing here, in the center of this Grace, where I will pull you to me, and you will serve me in this world as you have served him.

  “Choose, then: taking vengeance, or going back to slavery.”

  “He lies!” Ander’s spirit cried out.

  The storm of chimes around Richard made their choice. They saw the truth Richard had presented them. They crackled across the bridg
e Richard had created, the void in the world of life.

  The world shook with the ferocity of it.

  Across that bridge, with a howl of rage that could come only from the world of the dead, they seized Joseph Ander’s soul and took him with them back to that world, whence they had come. They took him home.

  In an instant that stretched for an eternity, the veil between those worlds was open. In that instant, death and life touched.

  In the sudden silence that followed, Richard held his hands out in front of himself. He seemed to be whole. He found that remarkable.

  The realization of what he had just done came over him. He had created magic. He had righted what Joseph Ander had wrongly corrupted.

  Now he had to get back to Kahlan, if she was still alive. He made himself banish that thought. She had to be alive.

  With a gasp, Zedd opened his eyes. It was dark. He groped and found walls of rock. He stumbled forward, toward light. Toward sound.

  He realized he was back in his body. He was no longer in the raven. He didn’t understand how that could be. It was real, though. He looked at his hands. Not feathers, hands.

  He had his soul back.

  He fell to his knees, weeping with relief. To lose his soul was beyond what he expected. And he had expected the worst.

  Without his soul, he had been able to inhabit the raven. He brightened a bit. That was an experience he had never had. No wizard had ever succeeded in projecting himself into an animal. And to think, it had only required surrendering his soul.

  He decided that once was enough.

  He walked on toward the light, toward the roar of water. He remembered where he was. Reaching the edge, he dove into the lake and swam to the far shore.

  Zedd dragged himself out on the far bank. Without thinking, he swept a hand down his robes to dry himself.

  And then he realized his power was back. His strength, his gift was back.

  At a sound he looked up. Spider nuzzled him.

  Grinning, Zedd rubbed the friendly, soft nose. “Spider, girl. Good to see you, my friend. Good to see you.”

  Spider snorted her pleasure, too.

  Zedd found the saddle and the rest of the tack where he had left it. Just for the delight of it, he floated the blanket and saddle onto Spider’s back. Spider thought it interesting. Spider was a good sport, and a good horse.