Chainfire (64 page)

As she crossed the ring of grass, she paused and turned, looking back through her watery vision at what she was leaving on the stone slab in place of the boxes.

It was the most precious thing she had.

And now she was leaving it behind.

Overwhelmed and unable to go on, feeling more hopeless and helpless than she could ever remember feeling, Kahlan sank to her knees in the grass.

She crumpled forward as she broke down sobbing. She hated her life. She hated living. The thing she loved most was being left behind because of those evil women.

Kahlan wept uncontrollably, gripping the shaggy grass in her fists. She didn’t want to leave it. But if she didn’t, Sister Ulicia would never let her get away with violating such a direct order. Kahlan sobbed at how sorry she felt for herself, for her helpless situation.

No one but the Sisters knew her, or even knew that she existed.

If only just one person would remember her.

If only the Lord Rahl would come to his garden and save her.

If only, if only, if only. What good was wishing?

She pushed herself up then and, sitting back on her heels, stared off through the tears at the granite slab, at what she had left standing there.

No one was going to save her.

She didn’t used to be this way. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she knew. Somewhere in her dim, vanished past, it seemed like she used to be able to depend on herself, on her own strength, to survive. She didn’t used to waste her time lamenting “If only.”

Staring across the garden, Lord Rahl’s beautiful, peaceful garden, she drew strength from what she saw standing there now, and, at the same
time, from somewhere deep inside herself. She had to do that now—be resolute, as she was sure she used to be. She had to somehow be strong for herself, for her own sake.

Kahlan somehow had to save herself.

What stood there now was no longer hers. It would be her gift to Richard Rahl in exchange for the nobility of life—her life—that she had remembered in his garden.

“Master Rahl guide us,” she quoted from the devotion. “Thank you, Master Rahl, for guiding me this day, for guiding me back to what I mean to myself.”

She swiped the backs of her wrists across her eyes, wiping away the tears and blood. She had to be strong or the Sisters would defeat her. They would take everything from her. Then they would win.

Kahlan couldn’t let them do that.

She remembered then, and touched the necklace she wore. She turned the small stone between a finger and thumb. This, at least, was still hers. She still had the necklace.

Kahlan struggled to her feet and straightened under the weight of the pack. She first had to get back so that Sister Ulicia would at least heal the injury she had inflicted. Kahlan would willingly take that help because she would then be able to go on and find a way to succeed.

With a last look back, she finally turned and headed for the door.

She knew now that she couldn’t surrender her will to them, to their belief that they had a right to her life. They might defeat her, but it couldn’t be because she allowed it.

But even if she lost her life in the end, she knew now that they would not defeat her spirit.

Richard slowly paced the small room, deep in thought, going over the memory of the morning Kahlan had disappeared. He had to figure it out, and soon—for more reasons than one. The most important of those reasons, of course, was to help Kahlan. He had to believe that he still could help her, that she was still alive and there was still time.

He was the only one who knew her, who believed in her existence. There was no one but him to help her.

There were also the implications of the wider concerns that her disappearance engendered. There was no telling how far-reaching those problems could turn out to be. In that, too, he was the only one opposing what hidden designs lurked behind events.

Since it seemed Kahlan had so far not been able to escape her captors, that meant she couldn’t and was going to need help. With the beast seemingly able to strike again at any time, Richard was painfully aware of how easily he could die at any moment, and if he did, then the one person who was her connection to the world would be gone.

He had to use every minute of what time he had available to work toward helping her. He couldn’t even bother wasting time reprimanding himself for all the days he had already let slip through his fingers.

It had all started that morning, not long before he’d been shot with the arrow, so he had decided to concentrate on that single event and to start anew. He had pushed the enormity of the problem from his mind in order to narrow his focus on the solution. He would never come to understand who had Kahlan by pulling out his hair and agonizing over the fact that someone had her, or by trying to convince others that she existed. None of that had accomplished anything, nor would it.

He had even set aside the books,
Gegendrauss
and
Ordenic Theory
, that he’d discovered in the little room. The first was in High D’Haran. It had been a long time since he had worked with the ancient language, so he knew he couldn’t afford to spend time on it. A brief examination had told
him that the book might hold remarkable information, although he hadn’t spotted any that was material. Besides, he was out of practice translating High D’Haran. He didn’t have time to work on it until he first resolved other issues.

The second book was difficult to follow, especially with his mind elsewhere, but he had read just enough of the beginning to realize that the book was indeed about the boxes of Orden. Other than
The Book of Counted Shadows
, which he had memorized as as child, he didn’t recall ever seeing another book about the boxes of Orden. That alone, to say nothing of the profound danger of the boxes themselves, told him that the book was of immeasurable valuable. But the boxes were not his problem at the moment. Kahlan was the problem. He’d set that book aside as well.

There were also other books in the small, shielded room, but he had not had the time or inclination to search through them. He had decided that devoting himself to the books before he had a true understanding of what was going on would only waste yet more time. He had to approach the problem in a logical manner, not in random, frantic attempts to somehow pluck an answer out of thin air.

Whatever the cause of Kahlan’s disappearance, it had all started that morning just before the fight when he’d been shot with the arrow. When Richard had climbed into his bedroll the night before the battle, Kahlan had been with him. He knew she had. He remembered holding her in his arms. He remembered her kiss, her smile in the dark. He was not imagining it.

No one would believe him, but he was not dreaming up Kahlan.

He put that part of the problem aside as well. He couldn’t concern himself anymore with trying to convince others. Doing so was only diverting his attention from the real nature of the problem.

Nor could he afford to give in to fear that others might be right that he was only imagining her; that, too, was a dangerous distraction. He reminded himself of the very real evidence: the issue of her tracks.

Even if he couldn’t make others understand the lifetime of learning that went into understanding the meaning of what he saw when he looked at tracks, he knew for certain what the evidence on the ground had revealed to him. There was a language to tracks. Others may not understand that language, but Richard did. Kahlan’s tracks had been swept away, undoubtedly with magic, leaving behind a forest floor too artificially per
fect and, more importantly, the rock that he’d discovered kicked out of place. That rock told him he was right. Told him that he was not imagining things.

He had to reason out what had happened to Kahlan—and that meant how had she been taken. Whoever had done it had magic, that much he knew. He at least knew that much because of the way their tracks had been altered. Knowing that narrowed the possibilities of who could be responsible. It had to be someone with magic sent by Jagang.

Richard remembered waking from a dead sleep that morning and laying there on his side. He remembered not being able to open his eyes for more than a brief moment at a time and not being able to lift his head. Why? He didn’t think it was because he was groggy from still being half asleep; it had been more overwhelming than that. It had felt like sleepiness, yet stronger.

But the part of the memory that had him at the tantalizing, frustrating brink of near understanding was what he remembered seeing in the murky darkness of false dawn as he had laid there trying to fully wake. That part of the memory was where he now put all his attention, all his mental effort, all his concentration.

He remembered shadowy tree limbs that appeared to move about, as if carried to and fro in the wind.

But there had been no wind that morning. Everyone had been sure about that point. Richard himself remembered how dead still it had been. But the dark shapes of the tree limbs had been moving.

It seemed a contradiction.

But, as Zedd had pointed out with the Wizard’s Ninth Rule, contradictions can’t exist. Reality is what it is. If something contradicted itself then it wouldn’t be what it is. It was a fundamental law of existence. Contradictions can’t exist in reality.

Tree limbs could not wave around by themselves and there had been no wind to move them.

That meant he was looking at the problem all wrong. He was always stumped by how the tree limbs could move about in the wind when there was no wind. The simple fact was that they couldn’t. Maybe someone had been moving them.

Pacing across the little room, Richard halted.

Or maybe it wasn’t the tree limbs that had been moving.

He’d seen the shadowy movement and had assumed it was the tree limbs. Maybe it wasn’t.

With that single insight, Richard gasped with sudden realization.

He understood.

He stood frozen, eyes wide, unable to move, as the sequence of events and scraps of information from that morning tumbled together in his mind, forming a framework of comprehension of what had happened. They had been taking Kahlan, probably using a spell of some sort on her, as they did to keep Richard asleep, then collected her things and tidied up the camp to erase evidence of her having been there. That was the movement he remembered. It hadn’t been tree limbs moving back and forth in the near darkness, it had been people. Gifted people.

Richard saw a red glow. When he looked up, Nicci was coming into the small room.

“Richard, I need to talk to you.”

He stared at her. “I understand. I know what the viper with four heads means.”

Nicci’s gaze turned away, as if she couldn’t bear to look into his eyes. He knew that she thought he was merely adding another layer to his delusion.

“Richard, listen to me. This is important.”

He frowned at her. “Have you been crying?”

Her eyes were red and puffy. Nicci was not the sort of woman given to tears. He had seen her cry, but only for very good reason.

“Never mind that,” she said. “You have to listen to me.”

“Nicci, I’m telling you, I’ve figured out—”

“Listen to me!” Fists at her sides, she looked as if she might again burst into tears. He realized that he had never seen her looking quite this distraught.

He didn’t want to waste any more time, but he decided that it might hurry things along if he let her have her say.

“All right, I’m listening.”

Nicci stepped close and gripped him by both shoulders. With an intent expression, she peered into his eyes. Her brow wrinkled with conviction.

“Richard, you have to get out of here.”

“What?”

“I’ve already told Cara to collect your things. She’s bringing them now.
She said she knows her way down here, down into the tower, anyway, without having to go through shields.”

“I know, I taught her before.” Richard’s sense of alarm began to rise. “What’s going on? Is the Keep under attack? Is Zedd all right?”

Nicci cupped one hand to the side of his face. “Richard, they are determined to heal you of your delusion.”

“Kahlan is no delusion. I just now figured out what happened.”

She seemed not to notice what he said, or maybe she was ignoring what she thought was no more than yet another in a long series of attempts to prove the impossible. This time, though, he wasn’t really interested in proving it to her.

“Richard, I’m telling you, you have to get out of here. They wanted me to use Subtractive Magic to eliminate your memory of Kahlan.”

Richard blinked in surprise. “You mean Ann and Nathan want to do that. Zedd never would.”

“Zedd too. They convinced him that you’re sick and the only way to heal you is to excise what they consider to be the diseased portion of your thoughts responsible for your false memories. They convinced Zedd that time is running out and this is the only way to save you. Zedd is so heartbroken to see you like this that he has snatched at what he thinks may be the only chance to make you well again.”

“And you agreed to this?”

She indignantly smacked the side of his shoulder. “Are you crazy? Do you really think I would do that to you? Even if I thought they were right, do you seriously think I would ever consider taking away part of who you are? After what you’ve shown me about life? After what you have done to bring me back to embracing life? Do you really think that I would do that to you, Richard?”

“No, I guess you wouldn’t do such a thing. But why would Zedd? He loves me.”

“He is also terrified for you, terrified that you are being taken over by this delusion, or bewitchment, or whatever is causing this sickness that is leaving you alive but not really yourself, turning you into a stranger they don’t know.

“Zedd feels that this might be their only chance to ever have you whole again, to ever have you be Richard, the real Richard, again.

“I don’t think that any of them—Ann, Nathan, or Zedd—really wants to do this, but Ann truly believes that you alone are the salvation for our cause. She has faith that prophecy has revealed this as the only chance we have and she is desperate to make you well lest we all be lost.

“Zedd was reluctant, but then they showed him a message in the journey book and talked him into it.”

“What message?”

“Verna is with the D’Haran troops. She sent word that our soldiers are becoming disheartened that you haven’t joined them. Verna fears that unless you are there to lead them they may choose not to go on. She sent a desperate message wanting to know if Ann had found you yet, trying to find out when you could be expected to join your men in the coming battle with the Imperial Order.”

Richard was stunned. “I suppose I can understand why the three of them are so worried, but to ask you to use Subtractive Magic…”

“I know. I think it’s a solution born of desperation, not clear thinking. But worse, I fear that once they discover that I don’t intend to do as they wanted, they will then decide that they can’t let this opportunity slip away from them and so their only alternative will be to try to somehow use their gift to cure you themselves. That kind of blind tampering with consciousness would be unpredictable, to say the least.

“They’re desperate because they fear we all are running out of time before Jagang ends our chances forever. They believe this is the only solution. They are no longer listening to reason.

“You have to get out of here, now, Richard. I only agreed to their plan so that I could warn you first and give you time to get away. You must leave immediately if you are to escape.”

Richard’s head was spinning at the very notion of what they wanted to do. “That presents a problem. I don’t know how to cover my trail with magic, the way Zedd can. If they are as committed as you say they are, then they will come after me. If they follow me and take me by surprise, what am I going to do, then? Fight them?”

She lifted her arms in frustration. “I don’t know, Richard. But I do know their state of resolve. Nothing you say is going to talk them out of this because they think you are suffering under a condition where you aren’t rational, so they feel that for your own good they must take control.
They may be doing it for loving reasons, but they’re wrong to do it this way. Dear spirits, I, too, think you’re suffering from some problem, but I just couldn’t allow them to do this.”

Richard squeezed her shoulder in a gesture of appreciation before he turned away as he tried to take it all in. It was near to impossible for him to imagine that Zedd would agree to such a thing. It just wasn’t like him.

Wasn’t like him.

Of course. It also wasn’t like Ann to be so certain of how Richard must be made to play out his role in prophecy. Kahlan had changed everyone who knew her. She had made Ann come to see how Richard wasn’t meant to follow the literal reading of prophecy as if it were a book of instruction.

Since Kahlan had vanished, everyone had changed. Zedd was different, too, and not in ways that were at all helpful. Even Cara had changed. She was just as protective, but now she was protective in a somehow more…feminine way. Nicci had changed as well, although in her case Richard thought the results were more positive—from his standpoint, anyway. She had forgotten everything having to do with Kahlan, and as a result she had become more sheltering of him despite her own views and interests, more willing to champion him despite everything he said and did. She was more devoted to him and thus more dedicated to safeguarding him.