“Do you think you can stop them with magic of some sort?” Another man asked?
Nicci jumped up beside him. “Lord Rahl has already set people in the Old World against Jagang’s forces. We have fought battles in their own homeland in the hopes of taking away their support.
“If you insist on keeping Lord Rahl here, with you, then you are wasting his singular talent, and you might die as a result. I ask, as one who fights at his side, that you let him be the Lord Rahl, let him do as he must, while you do as you must.”
“I couldn’t say it any better,” Richard told them. “There it is, then. That is the choice I give you.”
Unexpectedly, men began going to their knees. Far and wide dust rose as men shuffled to make space to kneel down.
In one voice, the chant began.
“Master Rahl guide us. Master Rahl teach us. Master Rahl protect us. In your light we thrive. In your mercy we are sheltered. In your wisdom we are humbled. We live only to serve. Our lives are yours.”
Richard watched out over the sea of men as the sun broke the horizon. The devotion was repeated a second time, and then a third time, as was customary in the field. Once it was done, men began to return to their feet.
“I guess that’s your answer, Lord Rahl,” General Meiffert said. “Go get the bastards.”
The men cheered their agreement.
Richard hopped down and took Nicci’s hand to help her down. She ignored the hand and jumped down of her own accord. Richard turned to Cara.
“Well, I have to go. We’re in a hurry. Look, Cara, I want you to know that I would be fine with it if you would like to stay with…the army.”
A dark frown descended over Cara as she folded her arms. “Are you crazy?” She looked up over her shoulder at the general. “I told you, the man is crazy. See what I have to put up with?”
General Meiffert nodded seriously. “I don’t know how you do it, Cara.”
“Training,” she confided. She trailed her fingertips across his cheek, smiling up at him in a way Richard had never seen her do before. “Take care of yourself, General.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He smiled at Nicci before bowing his head. “As per your orders, Mistress Nicci.”
Richard’s mind was already elsewhere. “Come on. Let’s get going.”
Chapter 66
Marching down the frame and panel hall, Rikka leading the way, Cara and Nicci in tow, Richard reached the intersection and turned down a stone passageway with a towering vaulted ceiling that soared up for nearly two hundred feet. Fluted columns to the sides rose up at evenly spaced intervals. Through large windows at the top the massive exterior buttresses that supported the lofty walls could be seen. Streamers of light angled in high overhead and from small round windows down lower. Their boot strikes echoed like hammers through the cold hall.
Richard’s cape that looked like it was made from spun gold billowed behind him as if in a gathering storm. The gold symbols around the black tunic fairly glowed in the muted light. Passing each shaft of sunlight, the silver emblems in his boots, on his wide, multilayered leather belt, and on his leather-padded wristbands sent blades of light flashing around them, announcing the arrival of a war wizard.
The fury of any Mord-Sith was enough to cause most people’s blood to pause in their veins, but cold anger on Cara’s attractive features seemed capable of turning that stilled blood to ice. To his other side the former Death’s Mistress in black looked no less formidable. From the first time he’d met her, Richard could almost hear the air around Nicci crackle with her power and it was doing that now.
Richard passed padded chairs and tables set in niches. Carpets at angles stuck partly into the hall in places, inviting people into quiet, cozy nooks. Richard skirted the carpets because the sounds of his boots on polished granite suited him. None of those with him walked across the carpets, either. With the reverberation coming back at them from the long hall, the sound built until it sounded almost like an invading army pouring through the Keep.
Rikka turned to him without slowing. She gestured to the right. “They’re in here, Lord Rahl.”
Richard cut the corner without slowing, aiming his march through the center of the huge double doors that stood open into the exquisite library. Heavy oak mullions crosshatched in the doors divided them into a dozen glass panes each. There were shelves to the ceiling on the thirty-foot back wall of the library, with ladders that rode on brass rails to provide access. Massive mahogany pillars stood gleaming in the streamers of sunlight coming in from high windows. But down low, the light was more gloomy and had to be cut with lamps.
An enormous mahogany table with turned legs that were each bigger around than Richard sat opposite the doors. To each side pillars rose to support vaults overhead. The ends of the room to the far left and right were left to the shadows.
Ann looked astonished. “Richard! What are you doing here? You are supposed to be with our troops.”
Richard ignored her as he grasped the red leather book he had tucked under an arm. He used the book like a broom to sweep aside the sprawl of books laid before them, creating a broad, polished, empty spot before the three gifted people.
Richard tossed the red, leather-bound book on table. It made a smacking sound that echoed almost like a clap of thunder.
The gold lettering, Chainfire, gleamed in the gloom.
“What’s this?” Zedd asked in dismay.
“Proof,” Richard said. “Part of it anyway. I promised to bring back proof.”
“It’s an ancient book,” Nicci told them. “A formula for creating what is called a Chainfire event.”
Zedd’s hazel eyes turned up. “What is a Chainfire event?”
“The end of the world as we know it,” Richard said with grim finality. “What they were doing turned out to inadvertently involve an attempt to create a contradiction, violating the Ninth Rule. They finally realized that if anyone ever actually undertook to initiate a Chainfire event, it would have cataclysmic consequences.”
Nathan frowned at Nicci, apparently hoping for a little more wisdom and experience from a former Sister. “What is he talking about?”
“Wizards in ancient times came up with a new theory on how to alter memory with Subtractive power, with all the resulting disconnected parts spontaneously reconstructed independently of one another—the creation of erroneous memory to fill in the voids that had been destroyed. They were studying the theory of how to make an individual disappear to everyone else by making people forget this person, even as soon as they’ve just seen them. Even as they look at them.
“It unravels people’s memory of the subject, but it was discovered that the ignition of such an event starts a cascade that can’t be predicted or controlled. Much like a wildfire, it continues to burn through links with others whose memory has not been altered. It eventually unravels the world of life itself.”
“And the prophecy worm?” Richard asked. “It may be real, but the cause of the prophecy vanishing this time is Chainfire. As part of the process, the person who initiates the event also fills in a void in prophecy, a place left blank by a prophet for future work. This gap is filled in with a completing prophecy which has the Chainfire formula invested in it. A Chainfire event thus infects and consumes all the associated prophecy on the branch, starting with related prophecy, either in subject or in chronology—in this case both: Kahlan. Thus, she is also wiped out of prophecy by what is called the Chainfire corollary.”
Nathan sat down heavily. “Dear spirits.”
Ann, hands in her opposite sleeves, did not look pleased or impressed. “All well and good, and we will have to study this book and see if anything you’ve come up with even begins to make sense.
“But that book is not the immediate problem.
“You should have stayed with our men. You must lead our troops in the final battle. You must return at once. Prophecy is quite clear. Prophecy says that if you fail to do this, the world will fall under the shadow.”
> Richard ignored Ann and met his grandfather’s gaze. “Guess what the counter is to a Chainfire event.”
Zedd shrugged, looking puzzled by Richard’s line of questioning. “How would I know?”
“There is only one. It was created specifically for this purpose.”
“What was?” Zedd asked.
“The boxes of Orden.”
Zedd’s mouth fell open. “Richard, that just isn’t—”
Richard reached into his pocket and pulled out what he had brought. He slammed it down on the table before the three of them.
Zedd’s eyes went wide. “Bags, Richard, that’s a snake vine.”
“You may recall from The Book of Counted Shadows: And when the three boxes of Orden are put into play, the snake vine shall grow.”
“But, but,” Zedd stammered, “the boxes of Orden are in the Garden of Life, in the People’s Palace, under incredibly heavy guard.”
“Not only that,” Nathan put in, “but I personally equipped the men of the First File with weapons that are deadly even against the gifted. No one could get in there.”
“I agree,” Zedd insisted. “It’s impossible.”
Richard turned and carefully took what Cara had been carrying. He gently set the statue of Spirit down so that the figure was facing the three on the other side of the table, as if she were holding her head high in opposition to their efforts to make her a delusion.
“This is Kahlan’s. She left it there, in the Garden of Life, in place of the boxes, so that someone would know she exists. The Chainfire spell erased her from everyone’s memory. Those who see her forget her before she even registers in their minds.”
Ann waved a hand over the book, the vine, and the statue. “But this, this, this is all still conjecture, Richard. Who in the world could even have dreamed up such a plot?”
“Sister Ulicia hatched the plan,” Nicci said. “She had Sisters Cecilia, Armina, and Tovi with her.”
Ann frowned. “How do you know this?”
“Tovi confessed to me.”
Ann looked more than astonished. “Confessed…Why would she do such a thing? How did you even catch her?”
“She was fleeing with one of the boxes of Orden.” Richard said. “She was ambushed by the man I gave the Sword of Truth to. He stabbed her and stole the box of Orden she was carrying.”
Zedd slapped his forehead, unable to speak, and thumped down into his chair.
“Tovi also told me,” Nicci said. “that they were here, in Aydindril, and planted that corpse in the Mother Confessor’s grave to make sure no one believed Richard, should he happen to try digging it up to convince people he was telling the truth. They got the dress out of the Confessors’ Palace. They wanted to make sure everyone thought Richard was deluded.
“Regarding that, I think you should also know that we traveled to the ruins of a city called Caska, down in southern D’Hara. Imperial Order scouts were there. I conducted an experiment on one of them. I used the Subtractive spell all of you wanted me to use to ‘cure’ Richard of his supposed delusions.”
Ann cautiously cocked her head. “And?”
“He didn’t live more than a few moments.”
Zedd, nearly as white now as his unruly hair, put his face in his hands.
“I’m sure that some of this will prove quite…useful,” Ann said, looking rather confused, “and it’s good that you have uncovered it. But as I said, the fact remains that you need to be with our troops, Richard. We revealed to you that vitally important prophecy: ‘If fuer grissa ost drauka does not lead this final battle, then the world, already standing at the brink of darkness, will fall under that terrible shadow.’
“These other matters you bring up are intriguing, to be sure, but the prophecy remains our most important mission. We simply can’t fail or the world will fall under the shadow.”
Richard gripped his temples between his thumb and second finger as he looked down, trying to gather patience. He reminded himself that these people were trying to do what was right.
He looked up, meeting their gazes. “Don’t you see?” He pointed at the snake vine on the table. “This is the final battle. The Sisters of the Dark have put the boxes of Orden in play. They intend to bring the Keeper of the dead into the world of the living. They intend to give life over to death in a bid to gain immortality for themselves. The world stands at the brink of darkness.
“Don’t you see? If you three had had your way, bent on enforcing prophecy, and tried to live by words you believed to be foreordained, I would not have survived the attempt to ‘cure’ me. I would be dead. In attempting to fulfill prophecy, you would have insured the success of the Sisters of the Dark, and the end of all life. The world of life would have ended because of you.
“Only free will—Nicci’s free will, my free will—has prevented what you three would have brought upon mankind in following your blind faith in prophecy.”
Ann, the last one standing, dropped into her chair.
“Dear spirits, he’s right,” Zedd whispered to himself. “The Seeker has just saved three old fools from themselves.”
“No. None of you are fools,” Richard said. “We all can do foolish things from time to time by not thinking. The thing to do then is to recognize a mistake and not repeat it. Learn from it. Don’t allow yourself to fail the next time. I’m not here to tell you that you are fools, because I know you’re not. I’m here because I need your help. I want you to start using your minds. You are all brilliant in your own way. You each have knowledge that probably no one else alive has.
“The woman I love, the woman I’m married to, has been kidnapped by Sisters of the Dark and had a Chainfire event unleashed on her life. That event is now burning through the lives of everyone who knew her and will eventually consume everyone living.”
He gestured to the statue of Spirit. “I carved that of your granddaughter’s spirit, Zedd. It was precious to her. She left it there, on that stone altar, covered in her blood. I want her back.
“I need help. Neither Nicci nor Cara remembers Kahlan, but they both know the truth of the fact that they don’t remember her because of what’s in this book, Chainfire, not because she doesn’t exist. You all lost something incredibly precious when your memory of Kahlan was taken from you. You lost a value in your lives that you could not begin to replace. You lost one of the best…”
Richard had to stop because he couldn’t get the words past the constriction in his throat. Tears dripped from his face onto the table.
Nicci came close and put a hand on his shoulder. “It will be all right, Richard. We’ll get her back.”
Cara laid a hand on his other shoulder. “That’s right, Lord Rahl. We’ll get her back.”
Richard nodded, unable to speak as his chin trembled.
Zedd rose up. “Richard, I hope you don’t think we will fail you again. We won’t. You have my word as First Wizard.”
“I’d rather have your word as my grandfather.”
Zedd smiled through his own tears. “That, too, my boy. That, too.”
Nathan shot to his feet. “My sword’s in play as well, my boy.”
Ann scowled at him. “Your sword is in play? What in the world does that mean?”
“Well, you know,” Nathan said, swirling his hand in a display of cut and thrust. “It means I will fight the good fight.”
“The good fight? How about if you help us find Kahlan.”
“Well, bags, woman—”
Ann shot a look at Zedd. “Did you teach him to talk like that? He never cursed like that before he spent time with you.”
Zedd shrugged innocently. “My goodness, no. Not me.”
Ann scowled at the wizard on each side of her before looking at Richard and smiling.
“I remember when you were first born, Richard. When you were a bundle of life in your mother’s arms. She was so proud of you then just for being able to cry. Well, I guess she’d be pretty proud of you now. We all are, Richard.”
Zedd wiped his nose on his sleeve. “How true.”
“If you can forgive us,” Ann said, “we’d like to be a part of stopping this threat. I, for one, am quite keen to take care of those Sisters.”
Nicci squeezed Richard’s shoulder. “I think you may have a fight on your hands over that. I think we’d all like to be the one to get at them.”
Cara leaned past Richard. “Sure, easy for you to say. You got to kill Sister Tovi.”
Chapter 67
Richard stood at the crenellation in the rampart, one foot resting on the low stone, gazing out across the sunlit scene of Aydindril down below the mountain, watching the puffy white clouds parade their shadows across the valley.
Zedd came up from behind and stood beside Richard, and for a time also watched out in silence.
“I can’t remember Kahlan,” he finally said. “Try as I might, I just can’t.”
“I know,” Richard answered without looking over.
“But for her to be your wife, she must be a remarkable woman.”
Richard couldn’t help smiling. “She is that.”
Zedd laid a bony hand on Richard’s shoulder. “We’ll find her, my boy. I’m going to help you. We’re going to find her. I promise you that.”
Grinning, Richard put his arm around his grandfather’s shoulders. “Thanks, Zedd. I could surely use the help.”
Zedd held up a finger. “We’ll get started right away.”
“Right away would suit me,” Richard told him. “I’m going to need to get me a sword, too.”
“Ah, well, the sword isn’t important. The sword is just a tool. The Seeker is the weapon, and I’d say you are still the Seeker.”
“About that, Zedd. You know, I’ve been thinking, and I’ve come to believe that maybe Shota wasn’t acting selfishly by demanding the sword in exchange for what she told me.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Well, the Sword of Truth draws from my gift. When I use my gift, such as that day we were down in the library and I read from a book of prophecy, it has the very real potential to call the beast to me.”