The Third Kingdom (6 page)

“Well, from my experiences I can tell you that, to a certain extent, anyway, the severity of the injuries is irrelevant. Of course, in some cases it isn’t, such as when the person is near
the veil and in the process of crossing over from the world of life into the world of the dead. That’s different.”

Sammie’s eyes widened. “You mean as the person is crossing the boundaries of the Grace?”

Richard regarded her more seriously. “Your mother taught you about the Grace?”

Sammie nodded. “The symbol that represents the spark of creation, the world of life, the world of the dead, and the way the gift crosses those boundaries to link everything. Those with the gift, she told me, must know about the Grace so as not to violate it. It defines how the gift flows and how it works—its capability and its limits—as well as the order of creation, life, and death. All our work, my mother said, is represented by the Grace, guided by it, and ultimately must be governed by it.”

“That’s what I learned as well,” Richard said. “By allowing myself to flow along those lines of the gift as represented by the Grace, I’ve found that healing most injuries is basically the same process. If you let the person’s need guide you, then through your gift you can feel what is necessary. Through your empathy you lift away the hurt and hold it within yourself so that the healing power of your gift can then flow into the person you’re helping. I have always found that the person’s need actually guides me, draws me onward toward it.”

Except that for some reason his gift had stopped working.

The girl frowned. “I think I know what you mean. My mother had me feel deep down into people, feel the trouble within them.”

“And did she teach you to lift that pain out of them and take it into yourself?”

Sammie hesitated. “Yes. But I was afraid. It’s hard when you can feel the pain they feel. I’ve done that. I’ve felt what they felt, though it was for smaller injuries. Then I try to lift it away
from them and, like you say, let the warmth of the gift flow from me and into them to heal them.”

Richard was nodding as she spoke. “That’s been my experience as well.”

“But you said that you have healed people when they have been at the boundaries of the Grace, when they have been crossing over into the world of the dead. You have flowed along those lines of the Grace that flow into the world of the dead.”

It didn’t sound at all like a question so much as a lecture for doing things she had been taught were forbidden.

“You would be surprised, Sammie, what you would do for ones you love.” He again looked over at Kahlan. “I love her very much and I’m afraid for her, but this time I don’t have the strength for the sustained effort needed to heal her. Can you do that for her?”

Sammie’s gaze glided over to watch Ester gently cleaning blood from Kahlan’s face. “What’s wrong with her?”

“I don’t know for sure. A Hedge Maid had captured her and was starting to drink her blood and—”

“Jit?” Sammie abruptly leaned toward him, her eyes intent. “Are you talking about Jit?” When Richard nodded she asked, “How did you ever manage to get away from the Hedge Maid?”

“I killed her.”

“Indeed he did,” Ester said back over her shoulder. She dipped the cloth in the bucket and then wrung red water out of it. “That’s how they were both hurt,” she said with a last look before going back to her work cleaning Kahlan’s wounds.

Sammie seemed not to notice Ester. She instead stared in wonder at Richard.

“Then you really are a protector of your people.” She caught herself, glanced at Ester busy with her work, then leaned closer to Richard and spoke confidentially. “You are the one.”

Richard didn’t know what she meant about him being the one. He was having enough trouble remaining upright and besides, he had far greater concerns at the moment.

“Will you help Kahlan, then? I need you to help us both, but I want you to help Kahlan first. I need to know that she’s out of danger.”

Anxiety tightened the gentle features of Sammie’s face. “She’s the Mother Confessor.”

Richard wasn’t sure exactly what she was getting at. “That’s right.”

Sammie winced a little with a sideways look, apparently fearful of posing the question. “Won’t I, well, you know, won’t I be harmed by her power? When I go down into the essence of who she is, won’t I be taken by her Confessor power?”

Richard was shaking his head even before she had finished the question.

“No, it doesn’t work that way.”

“How can you be sure? You said that you don’t know a lot about magic.”

“Because besides me, both a wizard and a sorceress have healed her before. None of us were harmed. In fact, a sorceress
was in the process of healing her earlier today, but we were attacked before she was able to finish.

“Kahlan’s power won’t harm you. It’s not a danger for you to heal her. So, will you do it?”

Sammie pressed her lips tight. Her mouth contorted as she weighed her inner doubts. She finally nodded.

“I’ll try, Lord Rahl. I’ll do my best.”

“That’s all I can ask.”

Sammie squatted down beside Ester and leaned in over Kahlan. She turned her head to get a better view as she looked down at Kahlan’s still face.

“She’s very beautiful,” Sammie said back over her shoulder.

Richard nodded, trying to be understanding of Sammie’s young age and not show his tense impatience. He was afraid that if he wasn’t careful he might frighten her and then she wouldn’t be able to concentrate properly on the job ahead of her. With his stomach in knots and Kahlan’s life hanging in the balance, it wasn’t easy to show the girl a calm expression.

“She is beautiful on the inside, too,” he said. “Right now she needs help. It’s up to us to give her that help.

“Maybe you should start out with the small things, first. Maybe concentrate on healing some of the cuts on her arms. That way you will be doing what you know. After you get comfortable with what it feels like to be healing her, then you can move on and deal with her bigger problem.”

Sammie nodded, liking the suggestion. “That sounds like the guidance my mother would give.”

She gently took hold of the older woman’s elbow and urged her back. Ester moved out of the way, pulling the bucket of bloody water with her.

“Take your time and think it through, child,” Ester told her. “Your mother taught you well. I know that you can do it.”

“I’ll do the best I can,” Sammie said as she rested a hand on
Kahlan’s abdomen, feeling her slow breathing. “I hope it’s enough,” she whispered to herself.

Ester stood off to the side, watching nervously. “Your mother would be proud of you, Sammie. She would say that you can do it, and that it’s in your hands now.”

Sammie, already concentrating on what she needed to do, answered with an absent nod. She momentarily touched various wounds along Kahlan’s arms, evaluating them with her gift. Her fingers tested the place on Kahlan’s stomach that had already been mostly healed by Zedd. Her hand lingered there, as if inspecting the work, perhaps hoping to learn from it.

Finally, Sammie scooted around so that she was kneeling above Kahlan’s head. Leaning in, Sammie pulled wet strands of Kahlan’s hair aside and then pressed her hands to Kahlan’s temples. Her splayed fingers lying along Kahlan’s cheeks were so small and frail-looking that Richard feared she didn’t have the strength needed for such a difficult task, to say nothing of the experience to accomplish it.

He reminded himself that he had healed people without any experience or training. He supposed that in that respect Sammie was more knowledgeable than he was. Still, it was Kahlan, and he couldn’t seem to quiet his worry, or his racing heart.

The girl’s eyes rolled back in her head as her eyelids slid closed. Still holding Kahlan between her hands, Sammie stretched her arms out straight as her head tilted back in the effort of calling for the needed strength.

Richard had learned some time back that he had the unique ability to see the gift radiating power around sorceresses. He could see that aura of power around Sammie as she opened herself up to her gift. The aura looked like shimmering, colored distortions to the air around her, something like the heat waves above a campfire.

Richard had seen the auras of gifted people before. It was reassuring to see such a marker of gifted power glimmering in the air around Sammie. While Sammie’s aura wasn’t nearly as strong as many he had seen, and especially not as powerful as that of a sorceress such as Nicci, it was definitely the gift he was seeing warming the glow around the girl.

He hoped that power would be enough.

Richard listened to the soft hiss of the candles as Sammie leaned forward again and bowed her head in concentration. He knew what she was experiencing, what it felt like to let yourself dissolve down into the person you were trying to help, to immerse yourself in their being, to be intimately close to their innermost self. He watched as the flames of the candles slowly wavered and the wax dripped down from time to time as they burned. He wondered all the while what Sammie was experiencing, what she was feeling within Kahlan.

Several of the candles in the room abruptly extinguished at the exact same instant. Richard’s gaze darted around the small room, searching shadows.

Sammie shrieked and leaped to her feet.

Richard sprang up in surprise. Ester shrank back.

Before he could ask her what was wrong, Sammie began screaming in a high-pitched shriek born of what looked to be unbridled panic. Arms flailing, she retreated blindly until her back smacked into the stone wall. In the grip of terror, still screaming, unable to back away any farther, she clawed at the air while shrieking in fright. Her head twisted from side to side as if she did not want to look at what she was seeing.

The shrill screech was painful. Ester fearfully backed away as far as she could. As Sammie turned to run for the doorway, Richard caught her, closing his arms tightly around her slender body to keep her from getting away. Her spindly arms thrashed frantically, as if she was trying to escape something only she could see. She screamed in unbridled terror the whole
time, twisting madly in Richard’s arms as she fought to escape.

Richard cocooned the squirming girl until he finally gathered her wildly flailing arms and pinned them to her sides.

“Sammie, what is it? What’s wrong?”

Tears streamed down her cheeks. “I saw it in her …”

“It’s all right. You’re safe, now. What did you see?”

When she turned in his arms and pushed at him, crying hysterically as she again tried to get away, Richard grabbed her firmly by the sides of her shoulders to keep her right where she was. Despite his injuries, she was no match for his muscle.

“Sammie, tell me what you saw!”

“I saw …” was all she could get out between sobs.

Richard shook her. “Sammie, stop it. You’re safe. Nothing is going to hurt you.” He shook her again. “Stop it now. Lives are at stake—your mother’s life could very well be at stake. You need to get control of yourself and tell me what’s going on. I can’t help fix it if I don’t know what’s wrong. Now tell me what you saw in Kahlan.”

Sammie, tears coursing down her face, shook from head to toe.

“I saw what is in her,” she sobbed.

“What do you mean? What did you see in her?”

Sammie’s face contorted in horror. “I saw death.”

Again Sammie tried to turn away. Again Richard turned her back.

“What do you mean, you saw death? You need to get yourself under control and talk to me. What do you mean?”

Panting in fear, Sammie swiped at the tears running down her cheeks. She gulped a few quick breaths and pointed, as if it was plain as day, as if he should be able to see it, too.

“She has death in her.”

As she again tried to twist away, Richard tightened his grip on her shoulders. “Calm down. Take a deep breath. Kahlan is unconscious. She can’t hurt you. I’m here with you. I need you to explain what you’re talking about so that we can figure out what you saw. Kahlan is alive. She’s not dead.”

Sammie’s face wrinkled up as tears sprang anew. “But I saw—”

“You’re a sorceress,” he said in a firm voice. “Act like one. Your mother is gone. She may need help, too. This is important. She would want you to stand in her place and do what is needed. You can do that, I know you can.”

Sammie sniffled, trying her best to hold back her tears. She finally nodded.

Ester laid a hand on the girl’s back. “You’re safe, Sammie. Do as Lord Rahl says, now.”

Sammie’s lower lip trembled. She looked from Ester back to Richard.

“Is that what my father saw when he died? Is that what it’s like? Did he have to face that? Did my mother see that too? Is that what we all face when we die?”

Richard squeezed her shoulders in sympathy and spoke softly. “I’m sorry, Sammie, but I can’t answer that. I don’t know what we see when we die. I don’t know what you saw in Kahlan. Now, take a deep breath.”

She took two.

“Better?”

She nodded as she pushed her thatch of dark hair back from the sides of her face.

“All right,” Richard said, “now explain to me what happened.”

Sammie took another steadying breath and then flicked a hand toward Kahlan. “I was connected to her, feeling her pain—you know, the pain of her smaller injuries, like you suggested. I was, well, I was trying to gather up a lot of that pain, collect it, and take it into myself.”

“I understand,” Richard said as he cautiously released her shoulders. “Then what?”

Sammie put one hand on a hip as she pressed the trembling fingers of her other hand to her forehead, trying to remember what had happened. “Well, I don’t know exactly. I don’t know how to explain it.”

“Do your best, child,” Ester urged.

Sammie glanced at her and then looked up at Richard’s eyes. “Do you know the way the sensation of beginning to do a healing is like being caught up in a flow that draws you in, draws you deeper, seeking more of the trouble within the person?”

“Yes, I know what you mean,” Richard said. “It’s like you lose your sense of who you are as you become more and more focused on them and their pain. It feels like you are dissolving into the other person, losing yourself as you slip down into who they are. It seems to gather power from you and in that way pulls you onward.”