Soul of the Fire (17 page)

Richard snatched up his boots. “How sick?”

“
By the healer woman’s behavior, I don’t think it’s serious, but I don’t know about such things. I thought you would want to see for yourself.”

“
Of course. Yes. We’ll be right out.”

Kahlan was already pulling on her clothes. They were still damp, but at least they weren’t dripping wet.

“
What do you think it could be?”

Richard drew down his black sleeveless undershirt. “I’ve no idea.”

Disregarding the rest of his outfit, he buckled on his broad belt with the gold-worked pouches and started for the door. He never left the things inside it unguarded. They were too dangerous. He glanced back to see if she was with him. Hopping to keep her balance, Kahlan tugged on her stiff boots.

“
I meant, do you think it could be the magic? Something wrong with it? Because of the Lurk business?”

“
Let’s not give our fears a head start. We’ll know soon enough.”

As they charged through the door, Cara took up and matched their stride. The morning was blustery and wet, with a thick drizzle. Leaden clouds promised a miserable day. At least it wasn’t pouring rain.

Cara’s long blond braid looked as if she’d left it done up wet all night. It hung heavy and limp, but Kahlan knew it looked better than her own matted locks.

In contrast, Cara’s red leather outfit looked to have been freshly cleaned. Their red leather was a point of pride for Mord-Sith. Like a red flag, it announced to all the presence of a Mord-Sith; few words could convey the menace as effectively.

The supple leather must have been treated with oils or wool fat, by the way water beaded and ran from it. Kahlan always imagined that, as tight as it was, Mord-Sith didn’t undress so much as they shed their skin of leather.

As they hurried down a passageway, Cara gave them an accusing glare. “You two had an adventure last night.”

By the way her jaw muscles flexed, it was easy enough to tell that Cara wasn’t pleased to have been left to sleep while they struck out alone like helpless fawns to see if they could put themselves in grave danger of some sort for no good reason whatsoever.

“
I found the chicken that wasn’t a chicken,” Kahlan said.

She and Richard had been exhausted as they had trudged back to the spirit house through the dark, the mud, and the rain, and had spoken only briefly about it. When she asked, he told her he was looking for the chicken thing when he heard her voice coming from the place where Juni’s body lay. She expected him to say something about her lack of faith in him, but he didn’t.

She told him she was sorry for giving him a rough day, inasmuch as she hadn’t believed him. He said only that he thanked the good spirits for watching over her. He hugged her and kissed the top of her head. Somehow, she thought she would have felt better had he instead reproved her.

Dead tired, they crawled beneath their blankets. Weary as she was, Kahlan was sure she would be awake the remainder of the night with the frightful memories of the incarnate evil she felt from the chicken thing, but with Richard’s warm and reassuring hand on her shoulder, she had fallen asleep in mere moments.

“
No one has yet explained to me how you can tell this chicken is not a chicken,” Cara complained as they rounded a corner.

“
I can’t explain it,” Richard said. “There was just something about it that wasn’t right. A feeling. It made the hairs at the back of my neck stand on end when it was near.”

“
If you’d been there,” Kahlan said, “you’d understand. When it looked at me, I could see the evil in its eyes.”

Cara grunted her skepticism. “Maybe it needed to lay an egg.”

“
It addressed me by my title.”

“
Ah. Now that would tip me off, too.” Cara’s voice turned more serious, if not troubled. “It really called you ‘Mother Confessor’?”

Kahlan nodded to the genuine anxiety creeping onto Cara’s face. “Well, actually, it started to, but only spoke the Mother part. I didn’t wait politely to hear it finish the rest.”

As the three of them filed in the door, Nissel rose from the buckskin hide on the floor before the small hearth. She was heating a pot of aromatic herbs above the small fire. A stack of tava bread sat close beside the hearth on the shelf, where it would stay warm. She smiled that odd little something-only-she-knew smile of hers.

“
Mother Confessor. Good morning. Have you slept well?”

“
Yes, thank you. Nissel, what’s wrong with Zedd and Ann?”

Nissel’s smile vanished as she glanced at the heavy hide hanging over the doorway to the room in the rear.
“I am not sure.”

“
Well then what’s ailing them?” Richard demanded when Kahlan translated. “How are they sick? Fever? Stomach? Head? What?” He threw up his arms. “Have their heads come off their shoulders?”

Nissel held Richard’s gaze as Kahlan asked his questions. Her odd little smile returned.
“He is impatient, your new husband.”

“
He is worried for his grandfather. He has great love for his elder. So, do you know what could be wrong with them?”

Nissel turned briefly to give the pot a stir. The old healer had curious, even puzzling ways about her, like the way she mumbled to herself while she worked, or had a person balance stones on their stomach to distract them while she stitched a wound, but Kahlan also knew she possessed a sharp mind and was nearly peerless at what she did. There was a long lifetime of experience and vast knowledge in the hunched old woman.

With one hand, Nissel drew closed her simple shawl and at last squatted down before the Grace still drawn in the dirt in the center of the floor. She reached out and slowly traced a crooked finger along one of the straight lines radiating out from the center—the line representing magic.

“
This, I think.”

Kahlan and Richard shared troubled a look.

“
You could probably find out a lot quicker,” Cara said, “if you would just go in there and have a look for yourself.”

Richard shot Cara a glower. “We wanted to know what to expect, if that’s all right with you.”

Kahlan relaxed a bit. Cara would never be irreverent about something this important to them if she really believed it might be life or death battling beyond the hide curtain. Still, Cara knew little about magic, except that she didn’t like it.

Cara, like the fierce D’Haran soldiers, feared magic. They were forever repeating the invocation that they were the steel against steel, while Lord Rahl was meant to be the magic against magic. It was part of the D’Haran people’s bond to their Lord Rahl: they protected him, he protected them. It was almost as if they believed their duty was to protect his body so that in return his could protect their souls.

The paradox was that the unique bond between Mord-Sith and their Lord Rahl was a symbiotic relationship giving power to the Agiel—the staggering instrument of torture a Mord-Sith wore at her wrist—and, more important, because of that ancient link to their Lord Rahl, Mord-Sith were able to usurp the magic of one gifted. Until Richard freed them, the purpose of Mord-Sith was not just to protect their Lord Rahl, but to torture to death his enemies who possessed magic, and in the process extract any information they had.

Other than the magic of a Confessor, there was no magic able to withstand the ability of a Mord-Sith to appropriate it. As much as Mord-Sith feared magic, those with magic had more to fear from Mord-Sith. But then, people always told Kahlan that snakes were more afraid of her than she was of them.

Clasping her hands behind her back and planting her feet, Cara took up station. Kahlan ducked through the doorway as Richard held the hide curtain aside for her.

Candles lit the windowless room beyond. Magical designs dappled the dirt floor. Kahlan knew they were not practice symbols, as the Grace in the outer room had been. These were drawn in blood.

Kahlan caught the crook of Richard’s arm. “Careful. Don’t step on any of these.” She held out her other hand to the symbols on the floor. “They’re meant to lure and snare the unwary.”

Richard nodded as he moved deeper into the room, weaving his way through the maze of ethereal devices. Zedd and Ann lay head to head on narrow grass-stuffed pallets against the far wall. Both were covered up to their chins with coarse woolen blankets.

“
Zedd,” Richard whispered as he sank to a knee, “are you awake?”

Kahlan knelt beside Richard, taking his hand as they sat back on their heels. As Ann’s eyes blinked open and she looked up, Kahlan took her hand, too. Zedd frowned, as if exposing his eyes to even the mellow candlelight hurt.

“
There you are, Richard. Good. We need to have a talk.”

“
What’s the matter? Are you sick? What can we do to help?”

Zedd’s wavy white hair looked more disheveled than usual. In the dim light his wrinkles weren’t so distinct, but he somehow still looked a very old man at that moment.

“
Ann and I … are just feeling a little tired out, that’s all. We’ve been …”

He brought a hand out from under the blanket and gestured at the garden of designs sown across the floor. Cara’s leather was tighter than the skin stretched over his bones.

“
Tell him,” Ann said into the dragging silence, “or I will.”

“
Tell me what? What’s going on?”

Zedd rested his bony hand on Richard’s muscular thigh and took a few labored breaths.

“
You know that talk we had? Our ‘what if’ talk … about magic going away?”

“
Of course.”

“
It’s begun.”

Richard’s eyes widened. “It is the chimes, then.”

“
No,” Ann said. “The Sisters of the Dark.” She wiped sweat from her eyes. “In conjuring a spell to bring the … the chicken thing …”

“
The Lurk,” Zedd said, helping her. “In conjuring the Lurk, they have either intentionally or accidentally begun a runaway degeneration of magic.”

“
It wouldn’t be accidental,” Richard said. “They would intend this. At least Jagang would, and the Sisters of the Dark do his bidding.”

Zedd nodded, letting his eyes close. “I’m sure you’re right, my boy.”

“
You weren’t able to stop it, then?” Kahlan asked. “You made it sound as if you would be able to counter it.”

“
The verification webs we cast have cost us dearly.” Ann sounded as bitter as Kahlan would have been in her place. “Used up our strength.”

Zedd lifted his arm, and then let it flop back down to rest again on Richard’s thigh. “Because of who we are, because we have more power and ability than others, the taint of this atrophy is affecting us first.”

Kahlan frowned. “You said it would start with the weakest.”

Ann simply rolled her head from side to side.

“
Why isn’t it affecting us?” Richard asked. “Kahlan has a lot of magic—with her Confessor power. And I have the gift.”

Zedd lifted his hand to give a sickly wave. “No, no. Not the way it works. It starts with us. With me, more than Ann.”

“
Don’t mislead them,” Ann said. “This is too important.” Her voice gathered a little strength as she went on. “Richard, Kahlan’s power will soon fail. So will yours, though you don’t depend on it as do we, or she, so it won’t matter so much to you.”

“
Kahlan will lose her Confessor’s power,” Zedd confirmed, “as will everyone of magic. Every thing of magic. She will be defenseless and must be protected.”

“
I’m hardly defenseless,” Kahlan objected.

“
But there has to be a way for you to counter it. You said last night that you were not without resources of your own.” Richard’s fists tightened. “You said you could counter it. You must be able to do something!”

Ann lifted an arm to weakly whack at the top of Zedd’s head. “Would you please tell him, old man? Before you give the boy apoplexy and he is of no help to us?”

Richard leaned forward. “I can help? What can I do? Tell me and I’ll do it.”

Zedd managed a feeble smile. “I always could count on you, Richard. Always could.”

“
What can we do?” Kahlan asked. “You can count on us both.”

“
You see, we know what to do, but we can’t manage it alone.”

“
Then we’ll help you,” Richard insisted. “What do you need?”

Zedd struggled to take a breath. “In the Keep.”

Kahlan felt a surge of hope. The sliph would spare them weeks of travel over land. In the sliph she and Richard could get to the Keep in less than a day.

Seeming nearly insensate, Zedd’s breath wheezed out. In frustration, Richard pressed his own temples between thumb and second finger of one hand. He took a deep breath. He dropped the hand to Zedd’s shoulder and jostled gently.

“
Zedd? What is it we can do to help? What about the Wizard’s Keep? What’s in the Keep?”

The old wizard swallowed lethargically. “In the Keep. Yes.”

Richard took another shaky breath, trying to preserve calm and reassurance in his own voice. “All right. In the Keep. I understand that much. What is it you need to tell me about the Keep, Zedd?”

Zedd’s tongue worked at wetting the roof of his mouth.