Severed Souls

  Richard was too late to try to stop what had already happened. Samantha had already dodged back out of reach.

  Kahlan was dead when she hit the floor.

  Samantha darted to an intersection in the hall and turned back, fists at her side, glaring at Richard. “I hate you! We are enemies from now on!”

  As men reached to grab her, she swept an arm out. The power she released sent the men flying, slamming into walls, smashing tables as they tumbled back down the corridor.

  Samantha gave Richard a last glare and then took off running.

  Richard didn’t give any thought to going after her. He was instead already on his knees and bent over Kahlan’s lifeless form.

  Her dead eyes stared at nothing.

  “No!” he screamed. “No!”

  Nicci pushed at him, but couldn’t budge him. He didn’t even feel her trying to shove him aside. He was lost in numb panic.

  “Get him back,” Nicci said to Cassia.

  She tugged at his arm as Laurin and Vale came racing into the hall, leaping over men still down on the floor and groaning in pain.

  Both Mord-Sith came to a dead stop when they saw Irena’s lifeless body in a heap, and then Kahlan, dead on the floor, the knife buried in the center of her chest.

  Richard needed to do something. He needed to stop what was happening. He needed to make it all right. He tried to think of how to undo what had already happened, but he couldn’t seem to form thoughts.

  “Get him back,” Nicci growled, tears running down her face, as she urgently tried to get Richard back away from Kahlan, tried to get his hands off her shoulders so she could see if there was anything she could do.

  Richard didn’t want to let go of Kahlan. He couldn’t let go. He was in a dreamworld where everything was happening so slow he couldn’t make sense of the echoing voices. He didn’t even know what they were saying. None of it seemed real.

  He couldn’t allow this to happen. He had to stop it.

  He couldn’t comprehend the sight of only the handle of Kahlan’s long knife jutting up from the center of her chest.

  She wasn’t breathing. Her eyes stared at nothing.

  “No!” he cried out again as the three Mord-Sith pulled at him, trying to get him back.

  Richard had seen more than enough dead people to know that Kahlan was dead, and yet he couldn’t seem to make sense of it. It couldn’t be real. He knew it couldn’t be real. Not Kahlan.

  “Richard!” Nicci screamed at him as tears streamed down her face. “Please, let me see what I can do! Please, Richard, get back!”

  The three Mord-Sith trying to pull him back were no match for his muscle.

  “Lord Rahl,” Cassia said, putting her face right in front of his, blocking his view of Kahlan. “Lord Rahl, her only chance is Nicci. You have to let Nicci help the Mother Confessor.”

  Richard blinked. That made sense. Nicci could help her. Shaking uncontrollably, he finally moved back with the help of the three Mord-Sith pulling urgently at him.

  He reached a hand out toward Nicci. “Do something!”

  She ignored him as she bent over Kahlan and worked swiftly to try to fix the unfixable.

  The men had recovered and collected a ways back down the halls, standing in silent shock, watching.

  “You have to heal her,” Richard said. “Nicci, you have to. Don’t let her die. Please, Nicci, don’t let her die.”

  Nicci stared up at him briefly, then swallowed back her emotion as she turned to the Mord-Sith. “Get her into the bedroom. Put her on the bed. Don’t touch the knife.”

  Richard wrenched himself away from the three trying to restrain him and rushed back in to scoop Kahlan’s limp form up in his arms.

  “I’ll do it.”

  CHAPTER

  84

  The walls of the room Cassia had found for them were creamy stone. One of the walls displayed a large, thick tapestry depicting a dark forest scene. It reminded Richard of the place in Hartland where he had first met Kahlan.

  The room’s one window let in the darkness from out in the Dark Lands. Raindrops pattered softly against the diamond-shaped pieces of leaded glass. Dark, rust-colored carpet muted the sound of the rain and low rumble of thunder.

  The canopy bed was covered with dark blue-green fabric embroidered with gold edging. Heavy draping of the same blue-green fabric was gathered with ties around the posts at each corner, making the bed look like a holy shrine.

  Now, Kahlan lay dead on that bed as if she were lying in state.

  Richard stood numb and silent as he watched Nicci frantically trying everything she could do. Even as he watched, even as he hoped, even as he tried to tell himself that Nicci would be able to save Kahlan, he knew better.

  The sorceress had slowly withdrawn the knife, sensing the nature of the damage every inch of the way as she had drawn it out. Richard couldn’t believe how long the blade was. He couldn’t believe how much steel had been plunged through her heart.

  Richard had sharpened Kahlan’s knife for her, so he knew that it was razor sharp. It was sharp enough for even that skinny girl to drive it right through Kahlan’s breastbone.

  When Nicci had finally withdrawn the entire length of the bloody blade, she had looked at it a moment, not knowing what to do with it. She had finally returned it to its sheath, where it belonged, probably so that no one would accidentally get cut on it.

  The three Mord-Sith quietly guarded the door, making sure that no one could come in. They hadn’t known Kahlan very long at all, yet they had known her long enough that tears ran down the faces of all three as they stood silent watch.

  Richard had given Commander Fister orders to have the men kill Samantha on sight if she came at them, but otherwise not to go after her. She had abilities they had no defense against.

  He would have gone after Samantha himself, except he didn’t want to leave Kahlan. But Samantha didn’t really matter, now. No matter what he did to Samantha, it couldn’t undo what she had done.

  Kahlan’s body heaved several times with a sudden jolt from Nicci’s power. It was a desperate attempt to bring life back to Kahlan’s lifeless form. It didn’t do any good. There was no movement, no life in her.

  Richard stared at the terrifying stillness of the woman he loved more than life itself. Nicci had closed Kahlan’s eyelids so her beautiful green eyes wouldn’t be staring up at nothing.

  Richard had never imagined how terrifying those eyes would look without a soul behind them, without her life in them, without Kahlan in them.

  He would do anything if he could trade places with her, if she would just draw breath again, look at him again. Smile with her special smile for him again.

  After a time, Nicci pushed herself up and slowly, reluctantly turned.

  “Richard, we need to talk.”

  “So talk.”

  Nicci rose and stepped closer to lightly grasp his arm. “Richard, she’s gone.”

  “No, she’s not. She can’t be gone. You need to heal her.”

  Nicci looked away from his eyes as she pressed her fingers to her brow. “Richard, the knife went right through her heart. Her chest is full of blood—”

  “My chest was full of blood, one time, and you healed me, remember?”

  Nicci nodded. “I remember.”

  “You used Subtractive Magic to take the blood out and Additive to repair the damage. Do that now for her.”

  “Richard,” she said as patiently as possible, “you were alive when I did that, and that arrow had gone through your lung, not your heart.”

  “Do it,” he repeated.

  Nicci stared at him.

  Richard gritted his teeth. “Do it, Nicci. Repair all the damage. Use your gift to put her back the way she was.”

  Nicci licked her lips. “Richard, her soul is gone. That knife did more than pierce her heart. It severed her soul from her worldly form. She’s gone. The same as Zedd is gone. I can’t heal death.”

  Richard was losing his patience. ??
?Nicci, I know some things about the world of life and the world of death. I have both in me. So does she. My soul, her soul, carry both.”

  “And what good is that going to do? What can you hope to accomplish by having her dead body put back the way it was when she was alive?”

  “Do it. Do it now and be quick about it. We don’t have much time.”

  Nicci stared at him.

  “Do it!”

  Nicci flinched. Finally, she nodded with a look of sympathetic understanding. She sat on the edge of the bed beside Kahlan and immediately went back to work, placing both hands around the bloody wound as she closed her eyes. Richard watched as Kahlan’s chest compressed with the pressure of Nicci’s hands.

  The sorceress gritted her teeth.

  Outside, lightning flickered and thunder rumbled through the mountains.

  Inside, the room crackled with threads of lightning that lit the stony faces of the Mord-Sith. The lamps dimmed, not because their flames went down, but because the air itself grew thick with what Richard recognized as Subtractive Magic, the magic of the underworld itself.

  The realm where Kahlan had gone.

  Ropes of black lightning arced and crackled around the bed. Blinding threads of lightning threaded themselves around it, spiraling and twisting, jumping from one place to another. The sound it all made—especially when the white and black lightning touched—was at times deafening.

  Several times Richard saw Kahlan draw a breath under Nicci’s hands, but he knew that it wasn’t Kahlan breathing, it was Nicci trying to pull life back into her. She was doing everything she knew to try to bring Kahlan back.

  Finally the sound and fury died away.

  Nicci stood and stared down at Kahlan for a time. The blood was gone, wiped out of existence by the Subtractive Magic while the Additive had knitted tissues back together and made her still heart whole again.

  Nicci took a deep breath. She looked exhausted. She looked defeated.

  “I’m sorry, Richard,” she whispered, unable to look up at him. “I repaired everything that was damaged. She is again as she was before. It is not enough.”

  Richard stared at Kahlan’s still, lifeless body. “Thank you, Nicci. You cannot imagine how much I appreciate what you’ve done for us.”

  “Richard, I’ve done nothing of any real use. Her life is gone. Her spirit has already crossed over through the veil. Her soul is already on that journey along the lines of the Grace. She is gone beyond, now.”

  “I know that, Nicci,” Richard said, holding himself together for what was to come.

  “Now, I need you to do one more thing for me.”

  CHAPTER

  85

  Nicci frowned suspiciously. “What one other thing do you need me to do?”

  Without answering, Richard walked to the door, to the Mord-Sith standing silent guard. He touched the cheek of each one of them in turn.

  “Thank you for reminding me why I fight for life.”

  A little puzzled, they nodded.

  “Thank you for giving us ours back, Lord Rahl,” Cassia said.

  He smiled, as best he could. It was forced. “Now, I need you all to wait outside, please.”

  The three shared looks with one another, uncertain what he had in mind.

  “Lord Rahl,” Cassia said, “we…”

  “I know,” he said. “Now, please wait outside.”

  They nodded tearfully and then, reluctantly, quietly left, closing the door behind themselves.

  Richard went back to the side of the bed. His heart pounded so hard that he rocked slightly with each beat as he stared down at Kahlan.

  “We have to hurry.”

  Nicci’s head came up. “What?”

  “Every moment counts. I need you to do one last thing for me. We have to hurry.”

  Nicci stared suspiciously up into his eyes. “What do you want me to do, Richard?”

  He swallowed. “I need you to stop my heart.”

  She did not look surprised. “I can’t do that, Richard.”

  “You can, and you must. You healed her body. Now, I have to go beyond the veil and retrieve her spirit before it travels too far along the lines of the Grace and she is lost forever to the underworld.”

  “Richard, that’s … Richard I understand how you feel, I swear I do, but that’s just not—”

  “I have the touch of death inside me.”

  “And so you want to hurry it along?”

  Richard’s gaze turned from Kahlan back to Nicci’s haunted blue eyes. “When Hannis Arc captured all of you, he kept you trapped in chambers behind a veil to the underworld. I stepped through that veil and into the underworld to come and get you out. Remember?”

  “We weren’t dead, Richard.”

  “In the third kingdom, both worlds existed together at the same time in the same place. Because I have death inside me, I am part of that third kingdom. I’m not only alive, I also carry death inside.

  “I passed through the world of the dead to get you out of that prison. I was there briefly, in the underworld, and I made it through. I know a great deal about the underworld.”

  “Richard, this is different. You can’t go to the world of the dead and retrieve a soul that has crossed over. You can’t do such a thing.”

  “Ordinarily, no, but Kahlan has that same touch of death in her that I do. That means that in this world, the call of death we have in us has been slowly stealing life away from us. But Kahlan and I are of that third kingdom, with both death and life in us, together, at the same time.

  “That means that right now, in that place, Kahlan has the call of life still in her. She carries both worlds until the spark of life still attached to her soul extinguishes in that dark place.

  “I have to go get her before that happens. I’m dead anyway. This poison is killing me.”

  “But we may be able to get Ludwig Dreier to show us how to heal you.”

  “Only after I bring Kahlan back. Then you can heal us. But before we try to heal that touch of death, I need to use it.”

  “Richard, it isn’t so simple as you—”

  “Nicci, you were a Sister of the Dark. You know that there is more to it all than most people can begin to understand. You must stop my heart and send me beyond the veil. You must.”

  Nicci shook her head. “No. Richard, I can’t do that.” Tears started coursing down her face. “I can’t do that to you. I can’t. Please, don’t ask such a thing of me.”

  Richard gripped her shoulders and made her look back at him. “I am asking it.”

  She started sobbing in earnest. “I can’t, Richard.”

  “Would you die for me?” he asked.

  Surprised by the question, she looked up into his eyes. “Yes.”

  “Then you understand that sometimes those we love are worth dying for. If you care about me, if you love me, you will grant me this.”

  “Richard, it just won’t work,” Nicci sobbed. “She’s gone. You can’t change that. It would be for nothing.”

  “Don’t you see? If I can’t bring her spirit back, then I want to be with her. Please, Nicci, don’t deny me this. Kahlan needs me right now. She needs what only I can do. There is no one else with the kind of chance I have. I have to do it now, before it’s too late. Let me go. Let me be with her.

  “Don’t hold me a captive in the world of life when you have the power to send me beyond the veil. Don’t make me do it myself and damage my body so that I don’t have a chance to return. You have to do it now, while the spark of life is still in her soul and before her spirit travels too far into that darkness for me to find her. Every second counts. Every second allows Kahlan’s soul to slip farther and farther away into the depths of the underworld where the winged demons wait for her.”

  Nicci shook as she sobbed, hardly able to look at him through the tears. “They are waiting for you, too.”

  Richard drew his sword. If he had to, he could do it himself with the sword. If he had to, he would.


  “I have my sword.”

  “Are you crazy?” she asked in fury through her tears. “The sword is of this world. It can’t cross over with you.”

  With the hilt in his hand, his anger had been ignited. It powered him, gave him strength to do what he needed to do.

  “Its anger will. The blade is bonded to me. That bond will cross over with me, even if the blade itself won’t.”

  Richard lay down on the bed beside Kahlan’s still, lifeless form. He had never imagined that he would lie next to her when she was dead. He had to partition his mind to be able to function, to be able to think at all, or the grief would claim him and then he had no chance.

  He laid the blade of the sword down the length of his body, holding the hilt over his heart, feeling the word “TRUTH” pressing into his palm as Nicci stood beside the bed crying.

  Only the rage of the sword kept him from losing control and screaming in agonizing grief.

  “Hurry, Nicci. It must be now.”

  Her teeth gritted, her hands fisted, she leaned closer. “Richard, I don’t want to lose you. We can’t lose you. We all need you.”

  “Why do you need me?” he asked, looking up into her wet, blue eyes.

  “Because you are the one. You always have been. You always know what to do to save us. You always do the right thing.”

  “That’s what I’m doing, now.” He smiled. “You know that you are far more than special to me. You have saved my life more times and in more ways than I can count.

  “Now, you must take it.”

  “How can I?” she asked.

  “It’s all right, Nicci. This is what I want.”

  As he stared into her eyes, as she wept nearly uncontrollably, she leaned over, her long blond hair falling forward over her shoulders as she placed her hands to either side of the hilt of the sword over his heart.

  Richard didn’t tell Nicci that while he thought he had a chance to return Kahlan’s spirit to her body in the world of life, he knew that he had no chance to return.

  There could be no one with both life and death in them, no one with the knowledge and experience of having been to the underworld, who could come after him.

  He believed that he had a chance—a slim chance, but a chance—to capture Kahlan’s spirit in time and let it return to the world of life, to her healed body.