Soul of the Fire (93 page)

“
So then why are you with child?”

“
Because of the chimes. Magic has failed. But before we knew it … Well, we didn’t know the necklace wouldn’t work on the night we were married. The magic was supposed to keep us from conceiving a child, but its magic had failed. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Kahlan had to bite the inside of her cheek to help keep the tears back.

“
Richard would still be happy,” Du Chaillu offered in a consoling whisper.

Kahlan shook her head. “You don’t understand everything involved. His life would be in great danger if people found out. The witch woman has vowed to kill this child, but more, I know her; she will decide that to prevent future trouble she will have to kill me or Richard.”

Du Chaillu thought it over. “Well, soon will be this foolish vote, where people tell him what he should already know, that he is the
Caharin
. After that, everything will be all right. Then you could go into hiding to have the baby.” The spirit woman put a hand on Kahlan’s shoulder. “You will come with me, back to the Baka Tau Mana. We will protect you until you have the
Caharin’s
child. We will protect you and your child.”

Kahlan drew a steady breath to prevent a sob. “Thank you, Du Chaillu. You are a kind person. But that wouldn’t help. I must do something to get rid of it. Find an herb woman, or a midwife. I need to shed this child before it’s too late.”

Du Chaillu reached out and took Kahlan’s hand again and put it back over the baby. Kahlan squeezed shut her eyes as she felt the child moving.

“
You cannot do that to the life in you, Kahlan. Not to the life come of your love. You must not. It would be worse.”

Richard came out of the little building, holding the scroll. “Kahlan?” he called. She could see him through a gap in the trees, but he didn’t see her on the bench.

Kahlan turned to Du Chaillu. “You gave your word you will keep this secret.”

Du Chaillu smiled and touched Kahlan’s cheek the way a grandmother might compassionately touch a grandchild. Kahlan knew she had just been touched not by Du Chaillu, Richard’s first wife, but by Du Chaillu, spirit woman to the Baka Tau Mana.

Kahlan rose, at the same time putting on her Confessor’s face. Richard spotted her and hurried over.

He looked back and forth between her and Du Chaillu. Finally, he disregarded his puzzlement and showed her the scroll.

“
I knew it had something to do with the word ‘school.’”

“
What?” Kahlan asked.

“
The Dominie Dirtch. Look here.” He tapped the scroll. “It says he didn’t fear intervention from jealous colleagues since he was”—Richard ran a finger under the words as he read aloud—“‘protected by the demons.’”

Kahlan didn’t have the slightest idea what he was talking about. “And this is important, because …?”

Richard was reading the scroll again. “What? Oh, yes. Well, When you first told me the name, Dominie Dirtch, I thought it was High D’Haran, but I couldn’t figure out its meaning. It’s one of those tricky multidimensional phrases I’ve told you about.

“
Anyway, ‘Dominie’ is a word having to do with schooling, as in teaching, or training, or, more important, controlling. Now that I’ve seen this other part, it’s jogged my mind to the translation of the thing.

“‘
Dominie Dirtch’ means ‘Schooling the Demons.’”

Kahlan could only stare for a moment. “But … what does that mean?”

Richard threw up his arms. “I don’t know, but it’s all coming together, I’m sure.”

“
Well, all right,” Kahlan said.

He frowned at her. “What’s wrong? Your face is, I don’t know … funny-looking.”

“
Well, thank you.”

He turned red. “I didn’t mean it looks bad.”

Kahlan waved a hand before herself. “No, it’s nothing. I’m just tired. We’ve been doing so much hard traveling and endless talking to people.”

“
Do you know a place called the Ovens?”

“
Ovens.” Kahlan frowned in thought. “Yes, I remember the place. It’s not far from here, in fact. Up a little higher above the Nareef Valley.”

“
How far?”

Kahlan shrugged one shoulder. “We could be there in a couple of hours, by midafternoon, if it’s important for some reason.”

“
Ander talks about it in these scrolls. He obliquely mentions it in conjunction with the demons—the Dominie Dirtch. That was the passage where I put the two together.”

Richard looked down the path to the group of people gathered, waiting patiently. “After we talk to these people, I would like to go up there and have a look around.”

Kahlan took his arm. “It’s a pretty place. I wouldn’t mind seeing it again. Now, let’s go tell these people why we need them to mark their circle to join us.”

The expectant faces were mostly Haken. Most worked on farms around the small town of Westbrook. Like all the people come to see them as they had traveled around Anderith, these people were concerned and worried. They knew change was in the wind. To most people, change was dangerous.

Rather than addressing them coldly, Richard walked among them, asking their names, smiling at their children, trailing a hand or a thumb along the cheek of the young ones. Because this was really the way Richard was, because it was sincere and not an act, within a matter of minutes he had a gaggle of children around him. Mothers smiled as he touched young heads, dark-haired and redheaded alike. The worried creases in the foreheads of fathers, too, loosened.

“
Good people of Anderith,” Richard began as he stood among them, “the Mother Confessor and I have come to talk with you, not as rulers, but as your humble champions. We do not come to dictate, but to help you understand the choices ahead of us all, and the chance you have to decide for yourselves what your future will be.”

He beckoned with an arm, and Kahlan gently worked her way through the throng of smiling children to join him at his side. She had thought they might fear a big man like Richard, dressed as he was in a black and gold outfit that made him look all the more imposing, but many pressed up against him as if he was a favorite uncle.

It was the white dress of the Mother Confessor they feared, warned as most in the Midlands were from birth of the Mother Confessor and her power. They made way for her, doing their best not to come in contact with her white dress as they tried to remain close to Richard. Kahlan ached to have them crowd around her the way they crowded around Richard, but she understood. She had a lifetime of understanding.

“
The Mother Confessor and I were married because we love each other. We also love the people of the Midlands and D’Hara. Just as we wanted to be joined in marriage so that we could look forward to life together, we want the people of Anderith to be joined with us and the other people of the Midlands, to go with us into a strong and secure future, one which provides you and your children hope for a better life.

“
Tyranny is marching up from the Old World. The Imperial Order would enslave you. They offer you no choice but to submit or to die. Only if you join with us will you have a chance to be safe.

“
The Mother Confessor and I believe that if we join the people of the Midlands and D’Hara together, all standing together as one to uphold our freedom, we can repel this threat to our homes and security … and to our children’s future.

“
If we timidly submit to tyranny, we will never have the chance to test our wings. Never again will our spirits lift proudly on the winds of hope. No one will have the chance to raise a family in peace, or be able to dream their children will do better, or achieve more.

“
If we do not stand against the Imperial Order, we will live under the shadow of slavery. Once that happens, we will descend forever into the darkness of oppression.

“
This is why we have come to speak with you. We need you to stand with us, to stand with peace-loving people, with those who know the future can be bright and filled with hope.

“
We need you to join with us and mark a circle to complete our alliance for freedom.”

Kahlan listened, as she had for weeks, as Richard spoke from his heart about what it would mean to join with them in the cause of freedom.

At first, the people were tense and cautious. Before long, Richard’s nature had won most over. He had them laughing, and then brought them to the verge of tears as he pulled forth their yearning for the freedom to chance greatness by showing them the simple power they could have if they and their children were permitted to learn, to read.

At first, this made people nervous, until Richard put it in terms they could understand: a letter written to a parent living elsewhere, or to a child gone in search of a better life. He made them understand the value of knowledge and how it could make their life better in ways that had meaning to them with opportunities for better work, or accomplishing more in the work they had.

“
But the Imperial Order will not allow you to learn, because knowledge is dangerous to oppressors. To those who would dominate you, knowledge must be crushed, because people who understand are people who will stand against the unfairness of the elite.

“
I would have everyone learn, so they can decide for themselves what they want. That is the difference: I trust you to learn, to do better, to strive for your goals, simple and great. The Imperial Order trusts not, but will dictate everything.

“
Together, we will have one land, with one set of laws that make it safe for all people, where no one man—be he magistrate or Minister or emperor—is above the law. Only when all must bow to the same law is every person free.

“
I came into this not to rule, but to uphold the principle of freedom. My own father, Darken Rahl, was a dictator who ruled through intimidation, torture, and murder. Not even he was above the law I hope us all to live by. I took over his rule so that he could no longer abuse his people. I lead free people—I do not rule subjects.

“
I don’t wish to tell you how to live, I instead wish to have all of you live in peace and safety the lives you choose for yourselves. I would like nothing more for myself and the Mother Confessor—my wife—than to raise a family together in peace and security with little need to devote myself to matters of ruling.

“
I would ask you to mark a circle, and join with us, for your own sake, for the sake of those to come.”

Dalton leaned a shoulder against the corner of the building and folded his arms as he listened. Director Prevot, from the Office of Cultural Amity, spoke from a balcony above a large crowd in one of the city squares. He had been going on for quite a while.

The crowd, mostly Haken, had gathered to hear of the coming events. Rumors were coursing through the city. People were frightened. They had come, mostly, not to see how they might avoid a calamity, but to see if they need bother to worry about the rumors.

Dalton viewed the situation with concern.

“
Shall you suffer while the special few are rewarded?” Director Prevot called out to the crowd. They answered with a collective “No.”

“
Shall you be worked to death while the chosen ones from D’Hara only grow richer?”

Again the crowd shouted, “No!”

“
Shall we let our good works of helping all Hakens rise above their nature be cast aside by this one man? Shall we allow our people to again be led astray by the cruel deception of education?”

The crowd shouted their agreement with Director Prevot, some waving their hats, as Dalton had instructed them to do. There were perhaps fifty of his Haken messengers in the crowd, dressed in their old clothes, doing their best to pump emotion into the responses to Director Prevot’s speech.

There were people caught up in the passion of the words, no doubt, but for the most part the crowd silently watched, judging if their own lives would be altered by what they heard. Most people weighed matters on a scale, with their life on one side, and the events before them on the other side. Most people were satisfied with the way things were, so only if the events on the other side of the scale threatened to outweigh or change their lives did they become concerned.

Dalton was not pleased. These people, while agreeing, did not see the events on the other side of the scales as much affecting their life.

Dalton knew they had a problem.

The message was getting out, but it was falling on little more than indifferent ears.