“Wait,” Nicci said.
Zedd looked back over his shoulder. His features were hard to see in the dim light, but his eyes were not. She saw in them some of Richard’s eyes.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I just remembered something I’ve been trying to figure out.”
Nicci steepled her fingers as she hurriedly tried to recall the details. She finally shook a finger as she spoke. “When the beast attacked us while we were traveling, I felt an odd sensation. I discounted it because being in the sliph is so strange to begin with that it’s hard to tell if anything you’re feeling is important, much less really out of the ordinary. Everyday sensations can seem wondrous—even miraculous. You don’t know if it’s all just the culmination of all the unfamiliar perceptions or something more.”
“Exactly when did you have this feeling?” Zedd asked, suddenly acutely interested in what she had to say. “All the time you were traveling, or at one specific time?”
“No, like I said, it was after the beast attacked us.”
“Be more specific. Think. Was it when the beast attacked? Maybe when it grabbed Richard? Or when it grabbed you?”
Nicci pressed her fingertips to her temples as she squeezed her eyes shut, desperately trying to recall it accurately. “No…no, it was after I was pulled away from Richard. Not immediately after, but shortly.”
“What was the sequence in which these events took place?”
“The beast attacked. We were fighting it. I tried to use my gift but it didn’t help. The beast was hurting me. Richard used his knife to cut away some of the tentacles. He saved me from being crushed.
“Then the beast pulled Cara away from him. Not long after that it pulled me away from him as well. It was then, after that—not immediately after, but it was only a short time later. I know because it was when I was frantically searching for Richard that I felt the odd sensation.”
Nicci looked up at the wizard. “The thing is, right after I felt that sensation, I could no longer sense the presence of the beast. I searched, trying to find Richard, but couldn’t. As the sliph swept us back to the Keep the feeling swiftly faded and I forgot all about it.”
“What did it feel like—this sensation?”
Nicci gestured. “It felt exactly the same as what is beyond that door.”
Zedd stared at her for a long moment. “What is beyond feels the same? A kind of…humming flow of power?”
Nicci nodded. “A charge of magic that somehow is baseless.”
“Magic frequently seems to be free-floating,” Cara said. “What’s so odd about that?”
Zedd shook his head. “Magic isn’t something that just floats around by itself. Magic has no consciousness, but this feeling in some way mimics that kind of conscious intent.”
“Yes,” Nicci said. “That’s my sense of it. That’s why it feels so odd, because magic with this kind of bearing cannot be baseless. This is domination generating its characteristic controlling fields of presence, but without the life necessary to generate it.”
Zedd straightened. “That’s a very good description of what I feel.” He peered suspiciously at the door. “I think that if we get closer we might be able to sense it better and find out what it is. If we can get close enough, perhaps we can analyze it.” He gave them both a look. “Let’s be careful, shall we?”
The three of them huddled close in the dim hallway as the wizard
carefully turned the lever and slowly pushed open the door. Nicci sensed no more with the door partly opened than she had with it closed. Zedd stuck his head inside for a moment, then pushed the door the rest of the way open. The room was dark, with only the dim light from the hall revealing shapes and shadows of what was inside.
At the far wall on their left Nicci could see an empty chair with a comforter folded neatly and draped over the back. Not too far from the doorway on the same side of the room sat a short, round table with a lamp that wasn’t lit. Beyond the table the bed lay empty. The rumpled sheets had been pushed off the side of the bed and puddled on the floor. Nicci peered around along with Zedd and Cara but she didn’t see Jebra. If she was somewhere else in the room it was too dark to spot her. With the odd sensation even stronger inside the room, Nicci’s inner perception wasn’t much help.
Zedd sent a flicker of his Han into the lamp. The wick was turned low, so the light wasn’t strong enough to chase the heavy shadows from the corners, or the far side of the wardrobe on the other side of the room. Still, there was no sign of Jebra.
Nicci, detached from her emotions and focused instead on perception governed by her Han, stepped past Zedd to stand tense and still in the center of the room, listening. With her gift she tried to open herself to the sensation of another presence lurking in the darkness, but she felt none.
A faint breeze rustled the curtains. The double doors, made of small glass panes, both stood open to a small balcony. Nicci knew from the balcony in her own room nearby that this balcony also overlooked the dark city far below at the base of the mountain.
Atop the balcony railing, a dark silhouette blotted out the moonlit countryside beyond.
Behind Nicci, Zedd turned up the wick on the oil lamp. When the light came up, Nicci saw that it was Jebra out on that balcony. Her back toward them, she was standing barefoot atop the fat stone railing.
“Dear spirits,” Cara whispered, “she’s going to jump.”
The three of them stood frozen, fearing to do anything that might startle the woman and cause her to jump before they could reach her. She didn’t seem to know yet that they were there.
“Jebra,” Zedd said in a soft, cautious voice, “we’ve come to see you.”
If Jebra heard him, she didn’t show any reaction. Nicci didn’t think that Jebra heard anything, though, except the haunting whisper of magic.
Nicci could feel the faint waves of that alien power rushing past her, humming toward the seer standing like a stone statue on the railing of the balcony. She stared out over the city of Aydindril far below. A gentle breeze ruffled her short hair.
The balcony, Nicci knew, while facing the valley below, was not right out over the edge of the Keep. Still, Jebra was confronting a drop of hundreds of feet to one of the inner courtyards, walkways, ramparts, or slate roofs of the Keep. At this height it didn’t matter that she wouldn’t be falling down the mountain were she to fall or jump; she would just as surely be killed against the stone of the Keep far below.
“Stars,” Jebra said in a low, thin voice to the empty space before her.
Zedd seized Nicci’s arm and pulled her close. He put his mouth by her ear. “I think someone is seeking the same answers we are. I think someone is probing her mind. That’s what we feel. It’s a thief, a thief of thoughts.”
“Jagang,” Cara breathed.
Nicci knew that that would be the logical assumption. With the bond to Richard somehow broken, Jagang could in theory do such a thing. Without Richard filling the role of the Lord Rahl, all of them were suddenly vulnerable to the dream walker.
A sickening ripple of icy dread coursed through Nicci at the memory of Jagang possessing her mind, her will. Without the Lord Rahl, the bond protecting them all was broken. If the emperor was riding the night he very well might discover them unprotected. The dream walker could, at any moment, without warning, drift unseen, unfelt, right into their minds and invest himself in their thoughts.
But Nicci knew Jagang. She knew what it was like when he possessed a person’s mind. He had at one time, after all, possessed her mind, controlled her, ruled her through that terrible presence. This was different.
“No,” she said, “it’s not Jagang. What I sense is something else.”
“How do you know for sure?” Zedd whispered.
Nicci finally took her gaze off of Jebra and looked at the frowning wizard.
“Well, for one thing,” she whispered back, “if it was Jagang, you would sense nothing. The dream walker leaves no trace. There is no way to tell he is there. This is entirely different.”
Zedd rubbed his clean-shaven chin. “It still seems somehow familiar,” he murmured to himself.
“Stars,” Jebra said again to the night beyond the balcony.
Zedd started for the open doorway through the double doors, but Nicci seized his arm and held him back. “Wait,” she whispered.
“Stars fallen to ground,” Jebra said in a haunting voice.
Zedd and Nicci shared a look.
“Stars among the grass,” Jebra said in that same dead voice.
Zedd stiffened. “Dear spirits. I recognize it now.”
Nicci leaned closer. “The presence?”
The wizard nodded slowly. “That’s the feeling of a witch woman plying her power.”
Jebra lifted her arms to the side.
“She’s going to jump!” Nicci shouted as Jebra began to topple forward out into the night.
Richard coughed violently.
The pain of the involuntary upheaval jolted him to consciousness. He heard himself trying unsuccessfully to groan. He had no breath with which to make a groan. With consciousness came a growing, confused panic of suffocation, as if he were somehow drowning.
He coughed again, wincing in pain as he did so. He tried to cry out in agony as he curled up into a ball on the ground, arms pressed tight across his middle, trying to prevent another fit of convulsive coughing.
“Breathe.”
Richard regarded the haunting voice that seemingly came from some netherworld place as the voice of insanity. He was doing everything he could
not
to breathe. He took careful, shallow, thimbleful breaths, trying to prevent another racking bout of coughing.
“Breathe.”
He didn’t know where he was and at the moment he didn’t really care. All that mattered was the feeling of suffocating. He didn’t want to breathe, despite how desperately he needed a breath. That sensation was so oppressive, so sickening, that in his mind it was not only completely debilitating, but all-powerful. Dying seemed preferable to the feeling continuing. He couldn’t endure it continuing.
Richard didn’t want to move because, with each passing moment, it was becoming easier not to breathe. It seemed that if he could just manage to keep from breathing a little longer, then over the crest of that dark hill out there somewhere ahead of him the pain and suffering would lift. He fought to lie perfectly still, hoping the spinning world would stop before he vomited. He could not imagine how much that would hurt. If he could just lie still a little longer, then it would all become easier. If he could just lie still a little longer, then it would all go away.
“Breathe.”
He ignored the distant, silken voice. His mind drifted to a time in the
past when he had hurt this much. It had been when Denna had him chained and helpless, when she had him at her mercy, when she hurt him until he was delirious from being tortured.
Denna had taught him to endure pain, though. He envisioned her standing there, watching him, waiting to see if would tip over the edge into death. There had been times with her when he had reached the crest of that distant, dark hill, and started down the other side.
When that happened Denna would be right there to put her mouth over his, forcefully breathing her life into him. She had not only controlled his life, she had controlled his death. She had taken everything. Not even his own death belonged to him; it belonged to her.
She watched him now. Her silver face came close, waiting to see what he would do. He wondered if he would be granted death, or if she would again put her mouth over his and…
“Breathe.”
Richard puzzled at her. Denna didn’t look at all like a silver statue.
“You must breathe,” the silken voice told him. “If you do not, you will die.”
Richard blinked at the beautiful face softly lit by the cold moonlight. He tried to pull a little more air into his lungs.
He squeezed his eyes shut. “Hurts,” he whispered with the entirety of that shallow breath.
“You must. It is life.”
Life. Richard didn’t know if he wanted life. He was so tired, so exhausted. Death seemed so inviting. No more struggle. No more pain. No more despair. No more loneliness. No more tears. No more agony of missing Kahlan.
Kahlan.
“Breathe.”
If he died, who would help her?
He drew a deeper breath, forcing it past the scalding agony it pulled down into his lungs. He thought of Kahlan’s smile, instead of the pain.
He drew another breath. Deeper yet.
A silver hand gently glided over the back of his shoulder, as if to comfort him in his agony of struggling to hold on to life. The face looked sadly sympathetic as it watched his struggle.
“Breathe.”
Richard nodded as he tightened his fists and gasped in the cold fire of the night air.
He coughed up thin red fluid and clots of blood that tasted metallic. He pulled in another breath, giving him the power to cough out more of the liquid burning his lungs. For a time he lay on his side, alternating between gasping in air and coughing out fluid.
When he was breathing again, if raggedly, he flopped onto his back, hoping to make the spinning stop. He closed his eyes, but that only made it worse, adding a kind of tilting, rolling movement to the spinning. His stomach roiled, on the brink of upheaval.
He opened his eyes and in the darkness stared up at the leaves above him. He saw mostly maple leaves in the canopy of tree limbs above him. Looking at leaves—talismans of the familiar—felt good. In the moonlight, he saw other kinds of trees as well. To take his mind off the pain and nausea, he made himself identify all the trees that he could make out. There were a smattering of heart-shaped linden leaves and, towering farther above, a bough or two of what looked to be white pine. There were some clusters of oak in the distance to the sides, along with spruce and balsam. Close by, though, there were mostly maples. With every breath of breeze he could hear the distinctive, soft rattle of cottonwood leaves.
Beside the pain associated with the difficulty of breathing, Richard clearly recognized that there was something wrong within himself. Something far more basic, more elemental.
It wasn’t an injury, in the conventional sense, but he knew that there was something dreadfully wrong. He tried to identify the perception, but he couldn’t pinpoint it. It was a hollow, empty, desolate feeling unrelated to the familiar emotions of his life, things like his need to find Kahlan, or what he had done with setting the D’Haran army loose on the Old World. He considered the troubling things Shota had told him, but that wasn’t it, either.
It was more a sense of a disturbing void within himself that he knew he had never felt before. That’s why he had so much trouble identifying it: it was a completely unfamiliar condition. There had been something there, some sense of himself, that he realized he had never thought about, never identified as a distinct element, a discrete part of his makeup, that was now missing.
Richard felt as if he was no longer himself.
The story Shota had told him of Baraccus and the book he had written,
Secrets of a War Wizard’s Power,
came to mind. Richard wondered if his inner voice was trying to suggest that such a book might help him in just such a situation. He had to admit that the problem did feel connected in some way to his gift.
Thinking about that book caused his mind to wander to what Shota had told him about his mother, that she had not died alone in that fire. Zedd was insistent that he’d looked through the charred remains of the house and he had found no other bones. How could that be? Either Zedd or Shota had to be wrong. For some reason, he could not believe that either of them were.
Somewhere deep in the back of his mind the answer ticked at him. Try as he might, though, he could not coax it out.
Richard felt a pang of loneliness for his mother, a feeling that had visited him from time to time throughout his life. He wondered what she would have to say about all that had happened to him. She’d never had a chance to see him grow up, to see him as a man. She’d only known him as a boy.
He knew his mother would love Kahlan. She would be so happy for him, so proud to have a daughter-in-law like Kahlan. She always wanted him to have a good life. There could be no better life than a life with Kahlan.
But he no longer had a life with Kahlan.
He guessed that he had life and, all things considered, that was about as much as could be expected at the moment. At least he could work toward his dreams. Dead men had no dreams.
Richard lay on his back, letting the air saturate his burning muscles, letting himself regain his senses, his composure. He was so weak he could hardly move, so he didn’t try to. Instead, as long as he was lying there recovering, he focused on everything that had happened, trying to put it all back together in his mind.
He had been traveling back to the Keep with Nicci and Cara when they had been attacked. It had been the beast. He had sensed its aura of evil. It appeared in a form different from any he had ever seen before, but it was the beast’s nature to assume different forms. The only thing he could count on to be consistent was that the beast would continue to come after him until it killed him.
He remembered fighting it. His hand went to a place on his leg where one of the tentacles had squeezed until he thought his leg would be stripped of
flesh. His thigh was swollen and painful to the touch but, fortunately, not torn open. He remembered slicing through some of the creature’s arms. He remembered Nicci trying to use her power, and wishing that she would stop because it was somehow conducting right through the sliph so that some of the power she had unleashed against the beast had ripped through him. He suspected that were it not for the substance of the sliph, Nicci’s magic could have killed him. It certainly didn’t harm the beast—at least, not enough to slow it down. It, too, must have been insulated, at least to some extent, by the sliph.
He remembered Cara being pulled away from him. He remembered Nicci likewise being violently separated from him. He remembered the beast trying to rip him apart. And he remembered managing to abruptly break free.
But then something had happened that he did not understand.
While he was separated from the beast, he had been jolted by an unfamiliar, painful sensation that ripped right down into the core of his being. It had been distinctly different from the pain caused by Nicci’s power—or that of any magic he had ever felt.
Magic.
Once he had formed the thought, he realized that he was right; it had been magic of some sort.
Even if it was the touch of a kind of conjuring completely unlike anything he had ever felt, he recognized that it had been the touch of magic. Even though he’d been free of the beast—he hadn’t even known where the beast was at that particular moment—that was when everything had suddenly changed.
As he’d gasped in pain from the abrupt assault of the strange charge of power, the sliph’s essence again filled his lungs. That breath had brought a shock of panic.
Richard remembered a similar feeling when he had been young. He’d been with several other boys, diving down to the bottom of a pond in a contest to retrieve pebbles. Their afternoon of swimming and diving from branches overhanging the small but deep pond had churned up the muddy bottom. Under the murky water, while diving for pebbles, Richard lost his sense of direction. He was out of air when he bumped his head on a thick branch. Being disoriented, he thought that bumping into the low branch meant that he’d broken the surface and run into one of the low-lying limbs
hanging out over the edge of the pond. He hadn’t. It had been a submerged branch. Before realizing what he had really done, he breathed in some of the muddy water.
He’d been close to the surface, to the shore, and to his friends. It had been a terrifying experience, but it had ended quickly and he’d recovered soon enough, learning a lesson to have more respect for water.
That memory of breathing in water as a boy, in addition to the natural unwillingness to inhale water, had made it all the more difficult to breathe in the sliph the first time. He overcame that fear, though, and it turned out to be a rapturous experience.
But in the sliph, when he suddenly found himself drowning, there was no surface, no shore, no help at hand. Such a thing had never happened in the sliph before. There had been no way for him to escape, no way to get to the surface, and no one to help him.
Richard looked over in the moonlight. The sliph was close by, watching him. He realized that she was not in a well, the way he had always seen her before. They were on the ground in a sparsely wooded place. He could hear no sounds but the sounds of nature. He could detect nothing but forest smells.
Beneath leaves, pine needles, forest debris, and roots Richard felt a rough stone floor. The grout joints were fat, more than a finger wide. These were not tight joints like those in finely crafted palaces, but they were without a doubt man-made.
And the silver face of the sliph, rather than looking out from within her well, had risen slightly from a rather small and irregular opening in the ancient stone floor. Ragged pieces from that stone floor now lay about on top of the dried leaves and rubble of branches, as if they had just been broken open from underneath—as if the sliph has broken up through them.
Richard sat up. “Sliph, are you all right?”
“Yes, Master.”
“Do you know what happened? It felt like I was drowning.”
“You were.”
Richard stared at the face in the moonlight. “But how can that be? What went wrong?”
A silver hand reached up from the ground to trail quicksilver fingers across his brow, testing him.
“You do not have the required magic to travel.”
Richard blinked in confusion. “I don’t understand. I’ve traveled many times before.”
“Before you had what was required.”
“And now I don’t?”
The sliph watched him a moment. “Now you do not,” she confirmed.
Richard felt like he must be hallucinating. “But I have both sides of the gift. I can travel.”
The sliph cautiously reached out and again felt his face. The hand slipped down to his chest, pausing for a moment to put light pressure against him. Her arm drew back into the dark hole in the broken stone.
“You do not have the required magic.”
“You already said that. It makes no sense. I was already traveling.”
“While you were traveling, you lost what is required.”
Richard’s eyes widened. “You mean to say that I lost one side of the gift?”
“No, I mean to say that you do not have the gift. You have no magic at all. You may not travel.”
Richard had to run the words through his head again to be sure he’d heard correctly. He didn’t see how he could have mistaken what the sliph had said. His mind raced through fragments of jumbled thoughts as he tried to grasp how such a thing was possible.