Soul of the Fire (52 page)

Richard felt as if his thoughts were going to war in his head. At the same time that he groped for solutions to the spectral threat, he was assailed by the image of endless enemy soldiers pouring up from the Old World.

“
All right,” he said, holding his hand out to stop everyone from talking at once. “All right. Slow down. Let’s just reason this out.”

“
The whole world might be dead from the chimes before Jagang can conquer the Midlands,” Kahlan said. “We need to address the chimes above all else—you’re the one who convinced me of that. It’s not just that the world of life might very well need magic to survive, but we need magic to counter Jagang. He would like nothing better than for us to have to battle him by sword alone.

“
We must get to Aydindril. As you yourself said, what if Zedd was telling the truth about what we need to do at the Wizard’s Keep—with that bottle? If we fail to carry out our charge, we may aid the chimes in taking over the world of life. If we don’t act soon enough, it may forever be too late.”

“
And I need my Agiel to work again,” Cara said with painful impatience, “or I can’t protect you both as I need to. I say we must go to Aydindril and stop the chimes.”

Richard looked from one woman to the other. “Fine. But how are we going to stop the chimes if Zedd’s task is only a fool’s journey to keep us out of his way? What if he’s just worried and wants us out of harm’s way while he tries to deal with the problem himself?

“
You know, like a father, when he sees a suspicious stranger approaching, might tell his children to run in the house because he needs them to count the sticks of firewood into the bin.”

Richard watched both their faces sour with frustration. “I mean, it’s a good piece of information that Joseph Ander was the one sent to stop the chimes, and he’s the same one who founded this land of Anderith. Maybe it means something, and maybe Zedd wasn’t aware of it.

“
I’m not saying we should go to Anderith. The spirits know I want to get to Aydindril, too. I just want not to overlook something important.” Richard pressed his fingers to his temples. “I don’t know what to do.”

“
Then we should go to Aydindril,” Kahlan said. “We know that at least has a chance.”

Richard reasoned it through aloud. “That might be best. After all, what if the Mountain, Joseph Ander, stopped the chimes way in the opposite direction—at the other end of the Midlands—and afterwards, later in life, after the war or something, went on to help establish this land now called Anderith?”

“
Right. Then we must get to Aydindril as soon as possible,” Kahlan insisted. “And hope it will stop the chimes.”

“
Look,” Richard said, holding up a finger to ask for patience, “I agree, but what are we going to do to stop the chimes if it’s all for naught? If it’s part of Zedd’s trick? Then we have done nothing to stop either threat. We must consider that, too.”

“
Lord Rahl,” Cara weighed in, “going to Aydindril would still be of value. Not only could you get your sword and try what Zedd asked of you, but you would also have Kolo’s journal.

“
Berdine is there. She can help you with translating it. She would be working on it while we have been gone; she may have already translated more about the chimes. She may have answers sitting there waiting for you to see them. If not, you will have the book and you know what to search for.”

“
That’s true,” Richard said. “There are other books at the Keep, too. Kolo said the chimes turned out to be much simpler to counter than they all thought.”

“
But they all had Subtractive Magic,” Kahlan pointed out.

Richard did, too, but he knew precious little about using it. The sword was the only thing he really understood.

“
Perhaps one of the books in the Wizard’s Keep has the solution to dealing with the chimes,” Cara said, “and maybe it isn’t complicated. Maybe it doesn’t take Subtractive Magic.”

The Mord-Sith folded her arms with obvious distaste at the thought of magic. “Maybe you can stir your finger in the air and proclaim them gone.”

“
Yes, you are a magic man,” Du Chaillu offered, not realizing Cara had been exercising her sarcastic wit. “You could do that.”

“
You give me more credit than I deserve,” he said to Du Chaillu.

“
It still sounds like our only real option is to go to Aydindril,” Kahlan said.

Unsure, Richard shook his head. He wished it weren’t so hard to decide the right thing to do. He was balanced on a divide, leaning first one way, and then the other. He wished he had some other bit of information that would tip the balance.

Sometimes he just wished he could scream that he was only a woods guide, and didn’t know what to do, and have someone who did step in and make everything look simple.

Sometimes he felt like an impostor in his role as Lord Rahl, and felt like simply giving up and going home to Westland. Now was one of those times.

He wished Zedd hadn’t lied to him. Lives now hung in the balance because they didn’t know the truth. And because Richard had not used Zedd’s wisdom when he had the chance. If only he had used his head and remembered Du Chaillu.

“
Why are you against going to Aydindril?” Kahlan asked.

“
I wish I knew,” Richard said. “But we do know where Jagang is going. We need to do something about it. If he conquers the Midlands, we’ll be dead, beyond doing anything about the chimes.”

He started pacing. “What if the chimes aren’t as big a threat as we fear? I mean, in the long run, yes, of course, but what if they take years to bring about the erosion of magic that would cause any real harm? Irreversible harm? For all we know, it could take centuries.”

“
Richard, what’s wrong with you? They’re killing people now.” Kahlan gestured back across the grasslands toward the Mud People’s village. “They killed Juni. They killed some of the Baka Tau Mana. We have to do whatever we can to stop them. You’re the one who convinced me of this.”

“
Lord Rahl,” Cara said, “I agree with the Mother Confessor. We must go to Aydindril.”

Du Chaillu stood. “May I speak,
Caharin
?”

Richard looked up from his thoughts. “Yes, of course.”

She was about to do so when she paused with her mouth open. A puzzled expression came over her face. “This man who leads them, this Jagang, he is a magic man?”

“
Yes. Well, in a way. He has the ability to enter the minds of people and in that way control them. He’s called a dream walker. He has no other magic, though.”

Du Chaillu considered his words a moment. “An army cannot long persevere without the support of the people of their land. He controls all the people of his land, then, in this way—everyone on his side?”

“
No. He can’t do this with everyone at once. He must pick who he will take. Much like a blade master, in a battle, would first pick the most important targets. He picks those with magic and controls them in order to use their magic to his advantage.”

“
So, the witches, then, are forced to do his evil. With their magic, they hold his people by their throat?”

“
No,” Kahlan said from behind Richard. “The people submit willingly.”

Du Chaillu looked dubious. “You believe people would choose to allow such a man to be their leader?”

“
Tyrants can only rule by the consent of their people.”

“
Then they are bad people, too, not just him?”

“
They are people like any other,” Kahlan said. “Like hounds at a feast, people gather round the table of tyranny, eager for tasty scraps tossed on the floor. Not everyone will wag their tail for a tyrant, but most will, if he first makes them salivate with hate and gives license to their covetous impulses by making them feel it is only their due. Many would rather take than earn.

“
Tyrants make the envious comfortable with their greed.”

“
Jackals,” Du Chaillu said.

“
Jackals,” Kahlan agreed.

Disturbed at hearing such a thing, Du Chaillu’s eyes turned down. “That makes it more horrible, then. I would rather think these people possessed by this man’s magic, or the Keeper himself, than to think they would follow such a beast of their own will.”

“
You were going to say something?” Richard asked. “You said you wanted to say something. I’d like to hear it.”

Du Chaillu clasped her hands before herself. Her look of dismay was overcome by a yet graver expression.

“
On our way here, we shadowed the army to see where they went. We also captured some of their men to be sure. This army travels very slowly.

“
Their leader, each night, has his tents put up for him and his women. These tents are big enough to hold many people, and have many accommodations for his comfort. They also put up other tents for other important men. Each night is a feast. Their leader, Jagang, is like a great and wealthy king on a journey.

“
They have wagons of women, some willing, some not. At night, all are passed around among the soldiers. This army is driven by lust for pleasure as well as conquest. They tend well to their pleasures as they go in search of conquest.

“
They have much equipment. They have many extra horses. They have herds of meat on the hoof. Long trains of wagons carry food and other supplies of every kind. They have wagons with everything from flower mills to blacksmith forges. They bring tables and chairs, carpets, fine plates and glassware they pack in shavings in wooden boxes. Each night they unpack it all and make Jagang’s tents like a palace, surrounded by the houses of his important men.

“
With their big tents and all the comforts they carry with them, it is almost like a city that travels.”

Du Chaillu glided the flat of her hand through the air. “This army moves like a slow river. It takes its time, but nothing stops it. It keeps coming. Every day a little more. A city, sliding across the land. They are many, and they are slow, but they come.

“
I knew I must warn the
Caharin
, so we did not want to shadow these men any longer.” She turned the hand in the air, like dust stirring before a high wind. “We returned to our swift travel. The Baka Tau Mana can travel as swiftly on foot as men on running horses.”

Richard had traveled with her. It was a false boast, but not by much. He had once made her ride a horse; she thought it an evil beast.

“
As we made swift journey northwest across this vast and open land to come here, we arrived unexpectedly at a great city with high walls.”

“
That would be Renwold,” Kahlan said. “It’s the only big city in the wilds anywhere near your route here. It has the walls you describe.”

Du Chaillu nodded. “Renwold. We did not know its name.” Her intense gaze, like that of a queen with grave news, moved from Kahlan to Richard. “They had been visited by the army of this man, Jagang.”

Du Chaillu stared off, as if seeing it again. “I have never thought people could be that cruel to others. The Majendie, as much as we hated them, would not do such things as these men did to the people there.”

Tears welled in Du chaillu’s eyes, finally overflowing to run down her cheeks. “They butchered the people there. The old, the young, the babies. But not before they spent days—”

Du Chaillu’s sob broke loose. Kahlan put an understanding arm around the woman’s shoulder. Du Chaillu seemed suddenly a child in Kahlan’s embrace. A child who had seen too much.

“
I know,” Kahlan soothed, near tears along with Du Chaillu. “I know. I, too, have been to a great walled city where men who follow Jagang had been. I know the things you’ve seen.

“
I have walked among the dead inside the walls of Ebinissia. I have seen the slaughter at the hands of the Order. I have seen what these beasts first did to the living.”

Du Chaillu, the woman who led her people with grit and guts, who had faced with defiance and courage months of capture and the prospect of her imminent sacrifice, who watched her husbands die to fulfill the laws she kept, who willingly confronted death to help Richard destroy the Towers of Perdition in the hope of returning her people to their land, buried her face in Kahlan’s shoulder and wept like a child at recalling what she had seen in Renwold.

The blade masters turned away rather than see their spirit woman so heartsick. Chandalen and his hunters, waiting not far off for everyone to finish with their deliberations, also turned away.

Richard wouldn’t have thought anything could bring Du Chaillu to tears in front of others.

“
There was a man there,” Du Chaillu said between sobs. “The only one we could find still alive.”

“
How did he survive?” It sounded pretty far-fetched to Richard. “Did he say?”

“
He was crazy. He wailed to the good spirits for his family. He cried endlessly for what he said was his folly, and asked the spirits to forgive him and return his loved ones.

“
He carried the rotting head of a child. He talked to it, as if it were alive, begging its forgiveness.”

Kahlan’s face took on a saddened aspect. Slowly, with apparent reluctance, she said, “Did he have long white hair? A red coat, with gold braiding at the shoulders?”

“
You know him?” Du Chaillu asked.

“
Ambassador Seldon. He didn’t live through the attack—he wasn’t there when it came. He was in Aydindril.”